


Walk On, Stand Tall, Leave It All Behind

by ladysashi



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Gang Violence, Headcanon, Heterosexual Sex, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Minor Character Death, Smoking, Vault 111, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-05-18 06:36:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 57,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysashi/pseuds/ladysashi
Summary: Shawn Cofran lived multiple lives, under various names. He was a reject, a vault subject, a scavver and mercenary, a raider, a settler, a freedom fighter and a militia soldier. He was dubbed mechanically inclined, a shy virgin, someone's best friend, another's lover -- a mistaken identity. He became a founder, a thug and murderer, a farmer and father, a widower, and finally a savior. He was a man given a thousand second chances at life, and he walked them all, no matter the pain each one doled out.Pre-Fallout 4 (begins in the year 2280 - 7 years before the 'Sole Survivor' leaves Vault 111 and continues for several years after Nora's entrance into the Commonwealth). Based on the entry in the Forged terminals about a 'failed' member named 'Viper' who was exiled from the gang.





	1. Leave It All Behind

**Author's Note:**

> As stated in the story summary, this tale popped into my head after reading in-game on one of the Forged terminals about a character named 'Viper' who was said to have 'failed' the Forged way of life in that he refused to kill a civilian when ordered to do so. In retaliation, the Forged had his family killed and he was exiled. Nothing more is known about him in canon lore.
> 
> The fic was also inspired by the fact that in Vault 111, pod C-1 is an empty cryo-pod in the same chamber as the Sole Survivor. In the terminal down the way, it is listed as, “Occupant Status: Not Applicable”. A Mr. Cofran is listed as being right next to pod C-1, in pod B-6, and his wife (Mrs. Cofran) and teenage daughter (Cindy Cofran), are further down the way, in pods B4 and B2, respectively. All three died from asphyxiation when the manual override was triggered in 2287 to get the Sole Survivor out. Oddly enough, the Overseer’s terminal says everyone checked in who was meant for a slot in the vault, yet pod C-1 is clearly empty (and appears to be completely un-thawed) when the Sole Survivor awakens. That leads to the conclusion that either the Overseer was wrong, and someone missed check-in and wasn’t frozen in time (and died on the surface) or the occupant in pod C-1 was somehow ejected earlier than the Sole Survivor and left Vault 111 for the surface. I used that little loophole in the story for this fic.
> 
> Title of this story partially taken from U2's "Walk On" (give it a listen, it really fits this story).
> 
> Please note this story will have sexual and dark themes (sex of all flavors and kinks, violence, murder, implied rape off-screen, character deaths, kidnapping, drug use/abuse, alcohol drinking and smoking, etc.). If that isn't your thing, don't read. You've been warned.

 

* * *

**_Vault 111_  - _December, 2280_ **

 

The infinite, black abyss spoke.

Darkness was a woman.

_“Cryo Pod C-1 – Manual release override accepted. Cryogenic stasis suspended.”_

There was a jolt and a hum, the chill receded and consciousness slowly returned.

_"_ _Commencing thawing procedures. Process at ten percent…fifteen percent…twenty percent…twenty-five percent…”_

Sensation emerged next as long-dulled nerves shed their medically-induced cocoon…a sharp, slicing pain that woke the frozen soul, made it gasp and instinctively scrabble for escape. The feeling returned to Shawn’s fingertips and toes first, a barbed prickling that was agonizing as gelid synapses were jolted awake by the flush of hot blood under his skin.

_“…thirty percent…thirty-five percent…forty percent…”_

Prying his wet lashes apart, he blinked against the dim light beyond his pod’s thawing window as the rods in his eyes adjusted.

_“…forty-five percent…fifty percent…fifty-five percent…”_

Throat raw, lips cracked, Shawn opened his mouth and gave a rasping cry for help, but the attempt was too weak to be heard outside the coffin he’d resigned his body to as the bombs fell above their heads.

_“…sixty percent…sixty-five percent…seventy-percent…seventy-five percent…”_

It took three more tries and the pod’s internal heating and filtration system kicking on and warming the air, drying his body before he was able to actually draw in enough air to scream to be let out.

_“…eighty percent…eight-five percent…ninety-percent…ninety-five percent…Thawing cycle complete.”_

The door popped with a snake’s hiss.

 _“_ _Enjoy your return to the surface. And thank you for choosing Vault-Tec.”_

With renewing strength, Shawn threw himself out of his cold tomb…and face-planted with a clumsy _‘oof’_ onto the chilly, steel flooring of the sleeping chamber as his jellied legs tripped him up. His chin hit hard, causing his back teeth to clang together and his eyes to rattle in their sockets. The jarring pain from the fall threw off the last of his brain fog, though.

“Shit,” he growled, feeling his tongue swelling and tasting the familiar zing of bitter copper behind his teeth. His chin was similarly sticky with wet blood, and he knew he’d cracked himself one good this time.

As he flopped over like a landed fish onto his back to stare up at the too-white ceiling far above his head, he probed the cut with the tips of his fingers, hissing as he touched the split that would require stitches to fix.

Yeah, that was gonna scar.

“Fuckin’ brills, goober,” he snarled, castigating his clumsy legs and punching a fist down upon one thigh.

Just what he needed—one more reason for girls to think him a freak. Bad enough he had two different colored eyes. That fact may have interested Vault-Tec enough to provide him and his family a guaranteed slot in this vault, but it hadn’t done much good for his social life before that. As a reedy, little pipsqueak, he’d been bullied and beaten up by the older kids for his ‘mutation’ all his life, and given the warding against the evil eye by old bags in mourning rags on the steps of the local church.

His defective eyes had been the bane of his existence, all nineteen years of it.

He’d fought back against the world for it of course, with fists and his own brand of rude hand gestures, but that kind of rejection was why he’d always preferred tools to people.

His baby sister, Cindy, had been born lucky, he thought for the thousandth time. Pretty, now that she’d hit her Sweet Sixteen and grown up, and with no deformity that would keep her from marrying in a few years... Her personality might, though, he thought. Chick could _scream_ when she was on the rag. There were days he wanted to push her off a tall cliff, especially when she barged into his room without permission or went off about how he spent all his time welding and rewiring metal rather than going out with live friends.

Thinking of Cindy, where was that banshee, he thought as he pressed the tight sleeve of his vault suit against his chin to staunch the bleeding that didn’t seem to want to stop. Come to think of it, where were the med-techs, too? Weren’t they going to come by to check in on him and his fam? It had been a few minutes since his pod had opened.

Maybe he was supposed to get up and go out to them?

Who the fuck knew? Everything had been so rushed when he, his father, his mother, and Cindy had been shoved into the vault, and then the bombs had gone off and it had taken a bit for everyone to calm the fuck down from that, and then he’d been too busy gawking at all the advanced tech and reeling from what he’d just left behind to really listen as their guide had brought them down the hall and prepared them for what he’d called, ‘decontamination’.

It took a moment longer for him to process that there were no other sounds in the room aside from the hum of active pods, and that there was a distinct absence of movement and light, too. Sitting up, he realized none of the other pods appeared to be going through their own opening cycles.

They were frozen solid.

Gazing up into the windows of his family’s pods in the same row as his, he could clearly see each of them resting at ease in those cushy, leather-back chairs—total _popsicles._

Panic had his heart suddenly racing like a booster engine running off a nuclear core and the sweat gathering at uncomfortable places inside his vault suit. Scrambling to his feet, Shawn looked around.

“Hello? Is anyone else here? HELLO?”

When there was no obvious response, he headed for the terminal on the wall, hoping it might contain answers. He examined it, pulling the standard keyboard down and hitting ENTER a bunch of times to get it to come online. There was no password requirement to access it, thankfully; he sucked at guessing those damned things. Give him _Atomic Command_ or _Zeta Invaders_ any day of the week and he’s high scoring it, but breaking encryption? Nah, he wasn’t that good with the software shit.

The screen lit up with its welcome message:

 

**Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink  
Thank you for choosing Vault-Tec!**

 

There was a menu to choose from, so he selected the first one, _Cryogenic Array_.

 

**Cryogenic Array: Online.**

**Isolated remote override detected for Cryo-Pod C-1. Overseer primary protocols disengaged.**

**Authorization: Institute.Patriot.000ab2ec.**

 

He went back to the main menu, and this time selected _Life Support_.

 

**Life support: Online.**

**Isolated remote override detected for Cryo-Pod C-1. Overseer primary protocols disengaged.**

**Authorization: Institute.Patriot.000ab2ec.**

 

Another return to the main menu had him selecting the final option, _Pod Occupant Status_. It listed a bunch of names, some of whom he knew, like the neighbors down the street, that nice young couple with the new baby, whose name was similar to his only spelled differently, and the Callahans, who served on the church’s fundraising board with his mom.

It also listed his father—though it referred to him by his civilian title of ‘Mister’ rather than by his former military title of ‘Captain’, his mother, and his sister. Their occupant status was listed as ‘Alive-Monitoring in Progress’. Unfortunately, there was no option to spring them on the monitoring terminal, and the door controls next to their pods, when he tried them later, were password locked.

Seeing no other choice but to go out and find someone on staff to help him release his family and demand explanations from them, Shawn headed out of the room marked ‘Cryo-Chamber One’, fists at the ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference I.D. 000ab2ec actually belongs to a character in Fallout 4. It's one of Bethesda's program codes for a specific character. Can you guess who it is? That will be revealed in the future, but if you know now, _shhhhh_. Don't spoil it for others. ^_^


	2. Dutchman's Hunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dutchman was a canon character - a member of the Railroad who was killed at Bedford Station (date unknown) when he was to meet up with a runner named Helena (she was murdered there prior to Dutchman’s arrival, although he didn’t know it) and an escaped synth named A9-51 (who disappears after Dutchman is gunned down trying to buy him time to escape and is never heard from again). The Sole Survivor stumbles upon Helena's corpse and Dutchman's tape at Bedford.
> 
> Dr. Hilda Volkert is a made-up character, but is designed to have been a distant relation of the Dr. Dean Volkert who works as a physician for the Institute in 2287.

**_Bedford Station -_ ** **_November, 2281_ **

 

“Dutchman, come on, man. We don’t have time to fuck around!”

Shawn pointed his cobbled-together pipe rifle at the merc’s dead body and gave the guy’s side a good shove with his foot for measure. It was like moving a slab of Brahmin that’d been out in the sun too long.

“Bastard isn’t talking anytime soon and a rad storm’s rolling in.”

“Don’t get your hose in a twist. This’ll only take a few seconds,” Dutch insisted, refusing to be deterred. “Cover me, will ya?”

The guy bent to rifle through the dead Gunner’s body, looking through the corpse for some proof that the legendary ‘Railroad’ group actually existed. He was convinced his kid sister, who he claimed had been swapped with a synth by the Institute, was still alive somewhere, and thought the Railroad might help him find her.

Why he thought a Gunner might know anything about the Railroad, though, was the part Shawn didn’t get. Wasn’t like the two groups—if the Railroad _even existed,_ that was—would have anything in common.

“What makes you think a merc knows something about your synth lovers, anyway?” Shawn demanded, keeping watch on the empty cargo container’s single opening, in case the Ferals that had swarmed inside the thing and eaten the hunkered down merc decided to come back for dessert. They’d been chased away with an old baseball lobbed hard against the side of the container, followed by the presence of fire when they launched a Molotov into the fleeing crowd of them, but he knew that they’d be back soon, and in greater numbers.

“See the arm band and its marking? That says he’s a scout for their head honcho, Captain Wes. I’ve spent years logging various faction signs. It’s a hobby,” Dutch replied, sticking his hands into the dead Gunner’s torn pockets, ignoring the fact his hands were now covered in blood. “Everyone knows Wes has been trying to find the Railroad for years, to turn them over to the Institute in the hopes the ‘Boogeyman of the Commonwealth’ will team-up with his evil ass and make him an even more rich and powerful S.O.B. Twenty caps says this poor, dead bastard was scouting around here hoping to catch a Railroad agent in action for his boss.”

Shawn tightened his grip on his gun as his sharp eyes caught movement heading their way from down the tracks. “And why would Wes think the Railroad would be here?”

“Because rumor has it that Bedford Station was once a rendezvous point for them.”

Yep, that was definitely a Feral headed their way, and it looked like it wasn’t alone. He pulled his second pistol from his thigh holster and made sure it was full-up, too. “They’re called ‘rumors’ for a reason, you know,” he pointed out, taking a knee and aiming his shot, just like his old man had shown him when he was a kid. Being an Army brat whose dad had taught him to know his way around a gun definitely had its perks in this new world, even if Shawn had preferred taking them apart and putting them back together to shooting them. “And where’d you hear that kind of piss, anyway? Sounds like Molerat swill to me.”

“There are old faction signs here, if you know where to look,” Dutch said, being oddly evasive about it. Not that the guy was talkative in general. In fact, this might be the most he’d said in two days. “Just keep watch on the door. I think I might have found something.”

Shawn sighted down the barrel, taking aim. “Yeah, I got it.”

The Feral meandered into his crosshairs. A ‘pop’ later, and the thing’s head jerked to the side and it fell over. Stayed down.

Its two friends seemed to have spied the spark from his muzzle when it went off, because they ran right for him as if they knew exactly where that shot had come from, arms stretched out, rough screams emanating from their ruined vocal chords. He unloaded on them until they both went down.

“Can we go now?” he demanded of his friend, reloading both guns, knowing it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the walking-corpse gang showed up. Not even the thundering booms coming from overhead now that the storm was practically on top of them could cover up the sounds of a Feral’s scream.

“Huh. This is interesting,” Dutch murmured behind him, and the familiar ‘ _click’_ of a flashlight being turned on was followed by the reflection of its beam hitting the container’s metal side. “Seems the Gunners took control of the old Galaxy News Network building six months ago and are now calling it ‘Gunner Plaza’.”

“So?”

There were sounds of papers being folded up and put away inside Dutch’s waist pack, and then the flashlight was turned off and Dutch appeared at Shawn’s right shoulder, 10mm drawn and safety off. “So, the tower used to belong to the Railroad, but according to the signs I saw all over it this last February when I was passing by, it had been abandoned by them for at least a month by then.”

“So?”

Dutch smacked him on the back of his head. “Think, stupid. Galaxy News Network had a radio tower – the strongest in the Commonwealth. Why would the Railroad want something like that?”

It took Shawn a moment to consider the possibilities, even as he kept one good eye on the horizon to watch for Ferals. “To talk to people,” he guessed. “People who are too far away and can’t be met face-to-face.” It hit him then what Dutch was implying. “You think they were flapping gums with their contacts around the Commonwealth with it?”

Dutch clicked his tongue. “Or maybe even someone inside the Institute, someone who was working with them to help synths. Makes sense, right? I mean, who else could give them the kind of deep info about synths needing to escape but a traitor from within?”

“Traitor? You really think?”

His friend shrugged. “Sure, why not? Maybe there are people working for the Institute right now who are just as unhappy about their policies as the rest of us. All it would take would be one guy broadcasting on an uncommon frequency out into the Commonwealth and someone on this end hearing it and responding. And since the Galaxy News tower is powerful enough to carry a large range of frequencies, it would be easy for the insider to switch bands to keep the Institute off his tail and for the Railroad to find him.”

What Dutch said resonated inside Shawn’s skull, and for the first time in almost a year, he felt the funny stirrings of hope. “Hey, um, do you think that tower could’ve been used to, ya know, contact my old Vault? Like, send it a signal?”

Dutch knew all about Shawn’s background. Three months or so after leaving the vault, he and Shawn had met at the abandoned Red Rocket down the road from Sanctuary. It was nighttime and storming outside, and Dutch had shown up seeking shelter from both the rain and a trio of feral dogs. The two together had taken out the starving, rabid animals—Dutch with his gun, Shawn with a tire iron—and then they’d pulled into the small garage area the roasting spit Shawn had fabbed by hand from the junk lying around, left the garage shutter half-down to let out the smoke, and turned the beasties over an open flame. They’d dined on barbequed dog meat and Nuka Cola that night, and Shawn had even split one of his Fancy Lad Snack Cakes with the guy for dessert. That had cemented their friendship. Turned out Dutch had been out searching the Commonwealth high and low for his missing sister then, and they’d swapped stories.

Funny as Shawn recalled that memory now, he knew that back then, Dutch had taken one look at Shawn in his dirty, torn Vault Suit and with a Pip-Boy on his arm and he’d known he’d had to help the newbie before he’d ended up a Stingwing’s dinner. The guy was like that, a regular Silver Shroud…only with a mismatched set of filthy clothes and weapons that required frequent maintenance. And minus the cool hat. Still Dutch was a regular do-gooder hero type, and Shawn looked up to him with a shit-ton of respect.

-Which is why he sought the guy’s council now. If anyone would know stuff about computers and signals being sent from them, it was Dutch. The guy seemed to be able to break into old pre-war terminals with relative ease and had been teaching Shawn the art, although he wasn’t a natural at it like Dutch seemed to be.

“Probably,” his friend replied to his question, raising his gun as he noted the movement beyond the water tower the same moment Shawn did. “You thinking the remote access command that set you free might have come from the tower?”

“Long shot, but…maybe.”

There were a lot of ‘not likely’ and unknowns with that scenario, though. Like, why would the Railroad want to free anyone from the Vault, much less _him_ , and how would they have even learned of the place? As far as he could tell from the number of people who’d commented on his suit as he walked around from stubborn farm to fleeting settlement, Vault 111 had pretty much been a surprise to them.

Maybe Dutch was onto something, though, looking for his group of Institute rebels. If the Railroad had controlled the tower up until this past January or February, they might have retained records of the signals that had passed through it while they’d been squatting at its base. All he needed were the signal records from last December, when he’d been freed from his ice prison. With them, if he struck gold, it might be possible to track down the person responsible for freeing him from the vault.

If he ever met that stranger, he’d ask them why the guy had done it…and if he could do it again to help free Shawn’s family.

Because getting the Cofran clan out of that frozen tomb had been his goal from the start. That hadn’t changed, despite the fact he’d been forced to put his own survival needs in this new, strange world at the front of the priority list since his expulsion into the New ‘Wealth.

Maybe finding this dead Gunner scout had been the lucky break he’d been waiting for…

As the rogue group of Ferals once more finally came into range, he and Dutch cut loose, mowing them down with expert shots, despite their patch-work weapons and the crap munitions they’d bought off a passing trader just last week.

 

* * *

 

When all the Ferals were downed and the fight was over, he and Dutch left Bedford to return to their favorite Red Rocket to drop off the day’s scavving haul. Inside the small garage area, with the metal door down and the others all shut up for the night, Shawn sat on his make-shift bed—really just a grimy bedroll thrown on the floor—with his back to one wall and once again pulled out the backpack full of stuff that he’d taken out of Vault 111 just a few weeks ago. Inside were the hand-written journals of the vault’s scientists, the raw notes and data not recorded on any of the terminals he’d inspected while snooping around down there. He’d lifted them out of an air pressured, water-proof safe after lockpicking his way through it, and had been surprised to find them in excellent condition, despite their age.

In the dim, flickering light from above, he re-read the notes for the tenth time, letting the hum of the small generator in the next room ease him as it always did.

The journals spanned from the date the bombs fell on October 23, 2077 until May 11, 2078. The scientist who made the last entry, a Dr. Hilda Volkert, recorded an employee revolt that final day that had ended in the death of the Overseer and a desperate run for the surface by the surviving staff. Volkert had been, apparently, the last to leave the vault. She claimed to have hidden in a closet to avoid the carnage caused by a rebellious security force and, once the rioters had gotten what they’d wanted and were gone, was planning to follow them out the door to ‘forage for sustenance’, as the vault’s food supplies had been used up. Best guess, Volkert had locked up the journals in the air-tight safe and left, intending to return, but had instead died on the surface from either radiation exposure or starvation.

Shawn flipped backwards to the first sets of entries to read the story in order.

In the weeks following the onset of the nuclear war, the science staff inside the vault had unanimously concluded that they would simply do their jobs until the ‘ALL CLEAR’ signal was given by Vault-Tec. So, carry on they had.

The experiments conducted on him and the other ‘subjects’ inside the cryo-pods sounded brutal, like the taking of tissue by cutting away small patches of skin near the ears, around the bellybutton, and under the armpit, and the drawing of blood and spinal fluid from the nape of the neck, and even the removing of sperm and eggs from each frozen patient. They’d accomplished it all with the small, mechanical arms that had been built into the sides of the pods to take samples, and which had been designed not to jeopardize the cryo-stasis of the subjects. The things had been computer controlled, it seemed, and very precise, and they’d used laser technology and advanced surgical patching methods that had been developed by the military to prevent scarring, so the patients would be none the wiser once they were eventually woken up and released.

For not the first time, Shawn imagined how they’d gotten around the vault suit to run their experiments. He pictured the mechanical arms lurching forward and unzipping each patient’s suit, pulling the edges aside as lasers moved in to start carving away at their flesh… He cupped his cock, nauseated at the thought of those same steely pinchers gripping his meat and holding it up while another moved in with a needle to take what they’d needed from his balls.

Christ, the thought of it had him breaking out in a cold sweat.

The goal of all that invasive probing, according to the notes, had been as horrible as the actual sampling: Vault-Tec had been trying to determine if it was possible for their scientists to succeed at ‘selective breeding for specific phenotypic anomalies’ in an effort to ‘better the survival statistics for post-war humanity’.

Shawn wasn’t a science wiz, as Cindy had been, but he’d passed all his classes with a solid ‘B’ average and he’d been a fan of SciFi comics, books, television and movies all his life, and so he’d gotten the gist pretty quick: they were talking about experiments done on people with mutations—people like him with his fucked-up eyes, and his neighbor, Mrs. Able, who all the kids in the neighborhood had made fun of for having to wear a special shoe because one of her legs was inches shorter than the other from birth. Apparently, each of the individuals who had been awarded a slot in the vault had something biologically ‘special’ about them that Vault-Tec had wanted to pass onto future generations after a nuclear war…and they’d partnered up with the Commonwealth Institute of Technology in the effort, as all of the science staff had been on loan from C.I.T., or so the journals claimed.

Whatever Vault-Tec and C.I.T. had been after, though, they’d failed at completing it. The war they’d all anticipated had come sooner than any of them had expected and they’d been woefully unprepared as a result. The vault hadn’t been stacked with enough rations or water to last a year much less two-hundred, and the only thing still functional had been the fusion-powered generators, which had kept the computers running and the lights on.

These journals were useless. Nothing had been done with the information contained inside them two-hundred years ago, and nothing could be done with it now, as there was no one left alive to make use of this data he’d gone back to collect in an effort to piece together what had happened and why.

Now that he knew, why was he even carting this shit around?

“Hey, you alright?”

Dutch settled in at Shawn’s side on the floor and passed him a bottle of Nuka Cola he’d gotten from the cooler outside. The drink wasn’t ice-cold, as the cooler didn’t actually work, but it was a good place for their temporary food and drink storage. Shawn used his boot knife to pry off the cap, pocketed it, and took a long swig from the bottle. The fizzy, sugary soda rinsed his mouth of the InstaMash and Cram he’d downed for lunch earlier.

“Just…trying to make sense of it all,” he admitted, running his thumb over the bottle’s etched label, feeling the ridges under it spelling out a brand that had, once upon a time, filled every household in America, and which had symbolized the country’s power and pride. It was ironic that its cheap aluminum flip top had now become the only acceptable currency. “Before the war, everyone looked at me as a freak because of my eyes. No one wanted me. I was… Shit, I’m still…”

He stalled, couldn’t admit aloud that he was a virgin in every sense of the word—never even been kissed. His pride wouldn’t let him admit to being that pathetic, especially to Dutch, whom he practically worshiped. Didn't want the guy thinking he was some kind of pussy.

He held up the first of the three journals not only to move on from that uncomfortable topic, but also for his friend to see its evil, too. Dutch had read them, same as he had, so he knew what they’d done. “Yet, I was exactly what those asshole white coats needed. They’d wanted to breed me _because_ I was defective.” He threw the books and his satchel off to the side, disgusted with the whole deal. “They still didn’t value me for me, though. I was just…a means to an end for them.”

His friend chuckled and touched his own Nuka soda to Shawn’s in cheers. The glass bottles made a sharp _‘clink’_ sound as the heads came together. “Welcome to adulthood,” he said. “This side of the fence everyone wants a piece of you, but no one wants to keep it for the right reasons.”

Shawn watched Dutch’s head tip back and his throat bob as he took a long swallow of his drink…and suddenly his vault suit was a little too tight and his face felt flushed. Quickly, he looked away, ashamed where his thoughts had taken him again, and tried to cover his awkwardness with a pull off his drink, too.

Thank god the suit had a built in cup over the groin, or he’d be flashing bone.

Lately, he’d been thinking a lot about Dutch and in ways that he was sure weren’t reciprocated. Guy didn’t swing like that, he was almost certain. He’d lose his shit if he knew Shawn had an erection going right now just from having looked sideways at him.

Besides, aside from getting off, Shawn wasn’t sure _he_ was into the idea much, either. He'd never thought about guys like that before, still didn't. It was only Dutch that caught his attention and held it like that. But, hell, that could just be because he needed to get laid and Dutch was someone he'd let in, trusted. Could be he was just a horny bastard.

Twenty and celibate sucked.

Okay, yeah, he’d been taking it in hand whenever there was a moment and he wouldn’t get caught, but that only took the edge off for a few hours. His libido was one healthy m-effer, apparently, despite whatever the vault scientists had done to him.

“Listen, Shawn, it’s not your fault you’re different,” Dutch said, suddenly serious and that jarred Shawn back into the here and now hard. He turned his head, noted his friend was staring at the rolled down metal door, but his gaze was far off, like he wasn’t fully present. “But for the record, you’re not freakish for it. You’re…special. You’re good in a way that the Commonwealth needs.” He blinked away inner thoughts and turned to him, giving Shawn his whole focus. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my days growing up in the streets of Boston it’s this: in this life, don’t let anyone make you feel small for any reason, no matter what they do to you or how they hurt you. And if they can’t see you’re special, than drop them and walk on. If anything, _they’re_ the freaks for not recognizing the uniqueness that is you right in front of their eyes.”

Shawn’s throat went tight. He never realized how much he needed to hear such a thing until the words were spoken. He swallowed, blinked, tried to sound and look calm despite the fact he’d just had his soul rocked hard.

“T-Thanks, man.”

Dutch’s lips curled with a gentle, warm smile. “You’re welcome.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Shawn awoke to the sounds of Dutch repairing his equipment using the work bench nearby. Guy was up early, and he’d gone to sleep long after Shawn had, reading over the scraps of paper he’d found on their dead Gunner, trying to decode the encrypted parts. Now as he bent over the work bench, it was clear that whatever he’d discovered weighed heavily on him.

Maybe now was a good time to return to the topic that had been on his mind since leaving the cargo container the day before…

“Hey, Dutch?”

“Yeah.”

Guy was back to being Mr. Tight-lipped, it seemed.

“Say you do find the Railroad, are you thinkin’ of joining up?”

His friend inspected the piece of metal he was hammering with one eye closed, checking its angles as he tilted it this way and that. “Yep.”

Shawn bit his lower lip, and then jumped into the fray with both feet. “If they’ll help me save my family from the vault, then I will, too.”

Dutch seemed surprised by that. He looked over at Shawn. “And what if they can’t? Help you with your family, I mean.”

Taking a deep breath, Shawn let it out nice and slow, his course already decided.

Over the long, restless night, as he’d slept irregularly, too, he’d decided that what was important was not giving in to his despair at the way life kept kicking him in the nuts, just like his friend had said. If he did that, he might as well throw in the towel now. No, he’d had two-hundred years of lying down to die, literally, and it hadn’t taken so as far as he was concerned, he was going to stop being Vault-Tec’s prisoner and he, sure as fuck, wasn’t going to let what they did to him make him feel like a carny side-show attraction anymore. The world was fucked, true, so he was going to do what he could to _un-_ fuck it, and in doing, he was going to rebuild a future for himself, his family, and for his only friend in this world.

“Then they can’t help in that,” he conceded, “but they do other good things, you said, like keeping the Institute on its toes. I like that they’re pissing off the Boogeyman. So, yeah, I’ll keep looking for a way to save my mom, dad, and sister no matter how long it takes…same as you will for your sister, right? And in the meantime, I’ll do what I can to fix the ‘Wealth. ‘Cause from what I see, she needs all the help she can get.”

Dutch nodded and something like respect twinkled in his eyes. He threw down the metal and the hammer onto the bench, and sauntered over to him. Dropping to his haunches, he spit into the palm of his hand and held it out to Shawn. “Hells yeah! Now you’re talking, kid!”

They shook on it, and that became their pact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's how I picture Shawn:  
> 
> 
> Here's how I picture Dutchman:  
> 


	3. Diamond In The Rough

**_Diamond City -_ ** **_September, 2282_ **

 

Shawn watched as the ghouls were marched out of the city by a contingent of security wearing outfits made of old umpire uniforms sewn together with ballistic weave and reinforced with metal.

He frowned and crossed his arms in silent protest, biting his tongue. A month ago, Dutch had asked him not to stir up any trouble while he was gone, because they’d just managed to scrape up enough caps and respect by the locals to afford a small, shared place here in town to live a couple of months back, and he didn’t want the privilege getting revoked on account of Shawn’s righteous temper.

Next to him, Moe nudged him and hissed in his ear, “Better not let the new Mayor see you with such a dark look, son. Might think you’re a sympathizer.”

“Hell, Moe, I _am_ one. And so are you.”

Quickly, his boss shushed him and pulled him inside the small stall where the he, Dutch, and the guy had set up their ode to baseball, selling relics from Shawn’s childhood as weapons of war. “Hey, kid, we ain’t here to help anyone but ourselves…and baseball. Certainly not a bunch o’ freaks with one foot already in the grave.”

“They’re human beings!” Shawn hissed under his breath. “How can you talk like that? What if it was you, huh?”

“But it ain’t me, kid, and it ain’t you or Dutchman, and we’ll all call ourselves lucky for it.” Moe picked up a bat, what he’d been selling to the public as something called a ‘Swatter’, because it sounded more menacing and therefore, worth more caps to a person desperate to defend themselves. “Now, tell me again about this Coach Westing fella…and thems collector items of his.”

After placating Moe with the story of his rich Uncle Westing, his mother’s brother, and how the guy had once played pro ball and had been a legend that had received some special gifts from the league upon his retirement, Shawn waited for the crowd to thin out and then headed for the Dugout Inn. He desperately needed a brew to rid his mouth of the foul taste from this afternoon’s showdown.

Vadim greeted him with a hearty cheer and pulled one of his Ice Cold Gwinnett lagers out from the nearby cooler for him. Shawn tossed down a few caps for the brew, cracked it open using the bottle opener attached to the side of the bar, and downed half of it in a single go.

“It is not so easy, my friend, no?” Vadim asked, leaning over the bar at him and talking in as much of a hush as the man could manage, given his boisterous voice. “Dis world is not so good sometimes, not for outsiders anyway.”

“No shit,” Shawn growled, taking another swig and letting the cool beer make its way down his throat into his empty belly, letting the stuff fill him up in lieu of food. If anyone knew about being a stranger in a fucked-up land, it was him. “That was just… What McDonough did was _wrong,_ man. Ghouls are people, too. Not their fault they got screwed up by the radiation. Could happen to any of us.”

Vadim clapped him on the shoulder with a hard hand. “Da, is true, but the tide is against you right now and I think it does no good for you to say so out loud. You do not want to sleep outside these walls, too, eh?”

The man was right. Shawn knew it.

Still, the forced march at gunpoint had scraped him the wrong way. It had angered him that the ghouls had been roughed up, frightened to the point where some of them had been wailing, despite the fact they could shed no tears. One had even pissed himself, his rotting bladder giving out on him as his bony knees shook. The laughter echoing down from the upper stands at that had made Shawn see red.

Hell, Brahmin were treated better than those ghouls had been!

If only Dutch came home soon! Four weeks, and no word as to whether he’d been successful finding the Railroad over at Lexington, where he was convinced they were headquartered, according to his rumours and connections. Four weeks of Shawn sitting on his ass, behaving and helping Moe sell baseball-related merchandise to people who really didn’t need it. Four weeks of some harmless trading of insults with Piper, who had become a confidant and good friend over the long months since he’d come to the city, for she reminded Shawn of his kid sister, Cindy, with her smart mouth and her cunning ways of getting info out of unsuspecting people. Four weeks of no fist-pounding, blood-pumping action to really distract him. At this rate, he was set to explode.

To help alleviate some of the strain, he’d taken himself in hand several times a day, but it wasn’t the same as actually being with Dutch.

He and his best friend had finally crossed _that_ line and had had sex just before the guy had left on this newest mission. Shawn had gotten his cherry popped well and good that afternoon five weeks ago, and they’d been insatiable for each other for days after. He’d literally been bent over every flat surface and piece of furniture in their small, dingy little place, and they’d even fucked while using the small shower attached to their unit, conserving their water ration by washing up together.

Those last seven days had been a gods-damned revelation, and Shawn had floated on air...right up until the moment when Dutch admitted he had to go to investigate his newest contact’s information about the Railroad, and that he’d had to go it alone.

In retrospect, Shawn had a feeling he knew why they guy had pulled away like he had: because things had started becoming too real between them. That last night, Dutch had looked into Shawn’s eyes as they’d come together slowly in the dim light filtering into their shanty through the upstairs ventilation grate, and there had been gentle kissing and murmurs that had sounded suspiciously like confessions tumbling from both of their lips. As their hips had collided and their gasps had gradually given way to loud cries of pleasure echoing off the metal rafters, they’d left marks on the other that Shawn knew would eventually fade, but never be forgotten. And the next morning, he'd woken up alone in bed, Dutch already washed up, dressed for an excursion outside the walls, and ready to head out after he finished the cup o' joe he'd made on the small stove in their tiny kitchen area.

That morning, Shawn had been left behind with a lame excuse and an apologetic smile, wondering and worrying…

Now, today had happened, too, and he was ready to unload on someone in a bad way.

As if sensing the dark places Shawn was going in his head again, Vadim whistled for Scarlett. “Hey, babe, heat up some pork and beans for our friend here, so he will not go hungry today. And throw in a bit of whatever meat we have in the fridge. He needs food to quell that fire in his belly, I think. On da house.”

Shawn felt his cheeks heat. He hadn’t eaten since last night, and wouldn’t be able to afford to do so again until tonight. It was hard enough coming up with the caps to buy a beer from Vadim every few days and a pack of smokes off of Myrna once a week, but eating more than once a day was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Sure, he made some good moola scavving through the ruins around the city and was able to offset a lot of the costs most people had to pay living in the only civilized section of Bean Town from what he and Dutch were able to pull out of the abandoned apartments and houses and storefronts they looted, but there was still rent to pay and there was the seemingly perpetual amount of caps required to fix his armor and buy ammo so he could handle any Raiders, Ferals, or Muties he ran into out on the streets, in the back alleys, and down in the sewers. All of that added up to a rumbling stomach most days, especially as Moe’s place didn’t net a whole lot on average and he hadn’t left the green walls for the last month to actually go out and earn some extra caps. It was kind of Vadim to offer him something for free.

Still, a man had his pride.

“I’ll work for it,” he insisted, meeting Vadim’s gaze over the top of his bottle as he raised it to his mouth. “What do you need done?”

The Russian looked at him for a long while in silence, as if debating asking him to do him the favor that hovered on the tip of his tongue. Shawn remained quiet, but he made it clear by refusing to drop the guy’s stare that he wasn’t opposed to working for a hot meal.

Besides, it couldn’t be that bad an errand, right?

“Da, I do have something I need done. Just a little help collecting some money owed me. Nothing too dangerous, I promise.”

“Vadim…” Yefim warned, coming over to eavesdrop on the convo. “No. Not this one.”

Vadim slapped his hand down on the bar, all grins and no worries. “It is nothing for him, Yefim, you worry too much. Look at him! The man is no small petal. There is strength in those shoulders and in his eyes. He is tall, too. Da, no one will challenge him. It will be simple, you will see, my brother!”

“I’m just going to ask them to pay you what they owe, right?” he clarified. “Then collect it and bring it back here.”

“That is it,” Vadim reassured him. “And, eh, maybe don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, yes?”

Shawn considered what his friend’s request really meant. Probably a little fronting, a threat or two, a show of muscle—something he’d gained plenty of in the nearly two years he’d been out of the vault, roughing it and looking for any sign of the one who’d sprung him from that cold prison. No need for violence.

“Who’s the mark?” he asked, tossing out some terminology he remembered reading in his old _Silver Shroud_ comics when he’d been a pimply-faced teenager right out of puberty. It made him sound a bit more professional about it all, he thought.

Vadim gave him an approving, sly grin. “Yefim, watch the bar. My friend and I need to talk.”

Shawn followed Vadim to the small office just off the main room to discuss the details of the job.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Shawn packed up his gear, donned his armor, and prepared to go out into the city to find a rogue soldier named McGraw who’d moved up from the Capital Wasteland a few years back and now owed Vadim some serious caps for a drug habit that was out of control. Guy was rumored to be hanging around Goodneighbor’s slums.

First stop though: Piper’s place to acquire a new map of the city.

The reason for the map was obvious: there was always so much squabbling for territory between various Raider gangs, Super Mutants, Gunners, and the ‘Wealth traders that you couldn’t be positive that any one building was still occupied by the same faction that had held it the week before. The only places that were certain aside from Diamond City were Beacon Hill—permanently guarded by some fierce military robots that killed anyone daring to approach, Bunker Hill—a trading outpost, South Boston—covered in Mirelurks, the Theater District—Raider territory, and Goodneighbor—located in the old Financial District. Everything else was transitional.

As things changed too rapidly around the city's disputed territories, making travel through it unpredictable, a current map of the streets and their loyalties was necessary.

Over the last three years, Piper had made herself the hub for that kind of intel. She'd found her niche in trading hard information, rumors, and caps to adventurers, roving traders, and unaffiliated scavvers to keep up on the street politics. Usually, her information was good, accurate within a day or two, since she was always out and about hunting down the latest news and gossip. That snooping reporter's nose of hers had made her a vital resource for Diamond City Security, which was why she was given such a good—and substantially discounted—housing space.

Shawn knocked on her door, and her eight-year old sister, Nat, answered.

The girl's grin fell as she took him in from head to toe, as if she’d been expecting someone else and been disappointed. “Oh, it’s you,” she said with all the enthusiasm of someone greeting an annoying relative. Turning away, she left the door open behind her for him to follow as she headed back into the small, but cozy flat. “Piper, it’s your pretty boy Vaultie again!”

“Nat, can’t you even pretend to be nice?” Piper shouted back, and there was the heavy pounding of boots as she ran down the wooden stairs from her loft. She appeared at the door, a little out of breath and a lot pink-cheeked. “Hey, S! Come on in!”

Shawn scrubbed a hand over her hair, messing it up as he moved past her into her small dwelling. “What’s the score, P?”

He and Piper had one of those weird relationships where two people met and clicked, like puzzle pieces fitting together. They'd been casual and comfortable with each other from the first moment they'd met, neither one flinching in the face of such brutal honesty. In truth, in only a matter of a few months, she'd become his greatest confidant, even more so than Dutch...mostly because there were some things he hadn't been able to confess to his other best friend, like how much he'd lusted after him and how conflicted he'd felt as a result, believing Dutch didn't feel the same way. Piper had freely offered him an ear and a shoulder, and some pretty sage advice whenever it was necessary, and she didn't judge him being into men. She was a pretty cool kitten, as far as he was concerned.

As they took a seat next to each other on her small, worn couch, she proceeded to verbally vomit all over him about how she'd just gotten back the other day from a run to Quincy with Nick Valentine and a bunch of traders, and then reassured him that the only reason she hadn't told him about it in advance or invited him to come along was because she'd been persuaded at the last minute to join the party by the synth detective, who had wanted her take on one of his cases trying to find a ghoul child who'd been missing since the war. Apparently, the kid's ghoul parents had been looking for 'Billy' forever, with no luck, and Valentine had hoped Ace Reporter Piper might be able to find clues that could help.

"He said two sets of eyes were better than one in this case," she explained with an amused smile. "Though his eyes have a zoom function and night vision, so I'm not really sure how I could compete."

"Well, did you find him?" Shawn prodded, interested in the case because it was Piper's story and he enjoyed hearing her talk, loved watching her eyes light up with fire.

Yeah, he was on a time-schedule, but he hadn't seen his girl in six weeks, so what was another hour or two, really? Vadim could wait.

"No," she admitted, crestfallen. "Not a trace of the kid anywhere, and nothing on any of the town's terminals, where he'd lived before the war to even give a hint. Four days to get there, five weeks of investigating, and another five days to get back because we were set back a day by one of the Brahmin breaking its leg after tripping over something in the road. Poor thing had to be put down." She frowned at the failure and the loss, and Shawn felt sorry for her on both accounts. Piper's heart was too big sometimes for such a tiny body. "Personally, I think poor Billy Peabody died in the war. I mean, sure, his parents became ghouls and survived the aftermath, but there's no guarantee that their child had."

"You're probably right. It's been two-hundred years with no word or a sighting, right?" he asked. "Most likely he didn't make it."

"My thoughts exactly. And speaking of not making it... I come home yesterday only to find out that no good, rotten scoundrel, McDonough, has won the Mayorship! _And_ he threw the ghouls out!" She went from sad to storming faster than Bobrov's Best through a man's guts, and with just as much of a punch, Shawn thought. He leaned back and let her go now that she was as tightly wound up as a top. "I heard his brother, John, was storming mad about it, too. Rumors around town say they had it out last night up in the stands, in front of all the prigs up top. I don't think John's going to stick around after today. He'll probably head out to Goodneighbor, too. Good, I hope his leaving upsets enough people that there's a revolt! What happened, that _has_ to be illegal! In fact-" 

She went on to confess that earlier that morning, before dawn, she’d sneaked into the Mayoral office to go through the old files, trying to find some legal precedent from previous leadership that might make what the man did illegal. From the look on her face, though, Shawn knew she hadn't struck pay dirt there, either.

“No such luck, huh?”

“Zippo,” she admitted, crestfallen by that fact. “But I am thinking we could call for a referendum, and see if people in town might be regretting their actions yesterday now that they’ve witnessed the hard reality of what they actually did. Maybe it’ll be enough to vote down the Mayor’s power, and the ghouls-”

“Are no doubt scattered at this point,” Shawn pointed out the obvious. “Some are probably finding refuge in Goodneighbor as we speak, but others… Shit, P, they could be half way to Far Harbor by now.”

Piper snorted, very unladylike. “Yeah, but who’d want to go there? I’ve heard the rumors about the size of their bugs.” She shuddered. It was a well-known fact to anyone within five miles that the girl _hated_ insects. “Blech!”

He elbowed her. “Point is this: they ain’t coming back.”

“Aren’t,” she automatically corrected him and shoved him back. “I'm aware, but still...there's always hope, right?"

He gave her a look that said otherwise, but kept his mouth shut, not wanting to squash her optimism. The girl was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak world, so why rain all over her parade?

She sighed, catching his drift without him having to say a word, though. It was like their minds were linked or something. "In any case, I take it this isn't just a social visit, is it? I'd love to think so, but your pack and your outfit say otherwise. So, what do you need this time, big boy?”

Shawn gave her his most rakish grin, the one he knew worked on Mrs. Fallon and Polly to get him discounts on goods and better selling prices at their counters. “Can’t I just come by to visit my best girl, see how she's been getting on?”

She laughed in his face. “Can it, Vaultie. I knew what you were about three seconds after we met, and after all these months, you’re not pulling the wool over this girl’s eyes. Besides-” She kicked the satchel at his feet. “Like I said, you’re packed for a trip. Is it Dutch? Are you finally going out after that man, dragging him back here, and strapping him down to your bed? Lord knows, I would!”

It was Shawn’s turn to be sporting red cheeks now.  

Piper looked at him through narrowed eyes, and then she gasped and gaped. “Oh, my god! You did it, didn’t you? You finally worked up the nerve to seduce him!” She sounded positively giddy at the prospect and openly leered at the naughty visions no doubt dancing in her head as she imagined it. “Dish! I want the details!”

Feeling his belly pulling all kinds of butterflies, Shawn merely cleared his throat and looked around for Nat. She was in her walled off sleeping area, and he could hear the sounds of her munching on Sugar Bombs while turning pages of the old magazines and comics he found for her in the ruins.

“Don’t worry,” she called out over the concrete barrier, “I’m not listening to you tell my sister all about your icky adult kissing stuff!”

He laughed, feeling a bit less conscientious. “Thanks, baby doll.”

“Anytime, hunk.”

He and Piper lost it at that, exploding into giggles that left them breathless and slumped down on the couch, sprawled at odd angles, her lying atop him. He held her close as she rested her cheek on his chest and sighed. “Was it good, at least?” she whispered, sounding oddly wistful. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Nah, it was-” He was planning to go for cool and manly about the whole thing, but what came out instead was just the truth, filled with a quiet acceptance and contentment. “It was really good. I know he doesn’t, you know, love me like I do him, but… No regrets. None at all.”

“That’s good, Shawn. I’m so glad for you.” She tilted her head and glanced up at him through long, sooty lashes. “You deserved a wonderful first time.”

He brushed her dark hair from her cheek, tucked a lock behind her ear. “So do you.”

The smile she gave him made it clear she didn’t think that was an option, and once again he wondered if someone in her past had taken advantage of her and broken her heart in the doing. If so, he’d hunt the fucker down and castrate him. Piper was only nineteen. Someone better not have done her wrong, especially if she'd been underage.

Pulling from his arms and kneeling up on the couch next to him, she held out a hand to help him up, too. He took it, but gave her a break and mostly used his stomach muscles to pull his body back into an upright position.

“So, what do you need?” she asked him again. “Name it, and it’s yours.”

“I'm not looking for Dutch, but someone else. Vadim asked for my help and I owe him, so I'm out running an errand for him. I need a map of the city, with currently known faction holdouts. I need the quickest and least dangerous route to Goodneighbor, ‘cause I don’t have enough ammo to get into a major firefight this time.” He rubbed her arms. "Sorry to ask this. I know you've been gone for weeks, and everyone's always asking for your help. You don't need me adding to that burden-"

She put two fingertips over his lips to silence him.

“You need it, you got it, Daddy-O. Give me two hours to get the latest and greatest for you."

He leaned up and kissed her cheek. "You're the best, P."

She smiled down at him from her higher advantage.

"I know, S."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This awesome cosplayer, lorethiacosplay, is exactly how I see Piper:  
> 


	4. Being a Good Neighbor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Protector McGraw is from Fallout 3's "Operation: Anchorage" DLC.

* * *

 

 

An hour later, having memorized the map Piper had provided and satchel firmly on his back, Shawn rechecked his weapon and then headed out of Diamond City and into the ruins of Boston.

For hours, he skirted the various districts that were known controlled territory, and carefully snuck around streets that were in question. He almost was seen once near the Mass Fusion Building by a group of Raiders, but fortunately they’d been too busy arguing over sharing some Jet to notice him as he’d slipped on by them. He made it to Goodneighbor just as the sun disappeared completely over the horizon for the day and night’s stars came out in all their majesty.

A Triggerman met him at the entrance of the town, warned him about the Mayor, a mobster named Vic, and how he had ‘house rules’ that involved any gambling or whoring, and how there was a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for drunken rowdiness, especially singing at night.

“Gotcha,” he told the guard, once the man had finished his long list of offenses and their inevitable single conclusion: a bullet to the brain. “I’ll behave.”

“You do that, or Vic’ll make your intestines into sausage and serve ‘em hot on the grill to the Ferals.”

He got directions to the Third Rail from the guy and then headed into the makeshift town. Muted music came from somewhere nearby, and there were voices out on the streets around the corner ahead. Keeping his wrist knife handy, Shawn followed the straight alley and then took the first left turn. He spied he crooked sign for the bar above the entrance and headed in.

The minute he opened the door, the music got louder, as did the sounds of laughter, glasses being filled with booze, and wooden chairs scooting back. They were coming from below ground, down a set of stairs. Shawn followed them down into a small, smoky dive that had a working ventilation system, a working Jukebox, a whole lot of mismatched furniture, and a Mister Handy wearing a bowler hat working behind a set of domestic kitchen counters plunked down next to each other to make a long bar.

It occurred to him as he stood on the bottom step, Betty Hutton belting out the evils of men in the background, and as he really looked around that the location had once been a pre-war subway station, but creative building by its owner had closed the place in nice and tight, preventing anything outside in the tunnels from getting in. And the electric hum of charged metal coming up from under the floorboards, doubly assured it; the subway’s third rail was active and carried a live current through it. Anything that accidentally touched it would end up as crispy as picnic fried chicken in seconds.

The joint was packed, despite it being a work night, and everyone was drowning their sorrows with some kind of alcoholic beverage.

 _Geez Louise,_ he thought, he and Dutch could make a fortune running a joint like this of their own. Problem was location. Diamond City was already booked by two solid pubs: Vadim’s and the Colonial Taphouse upstairs, and it looked like Goodneighbor wasn’t the kind of place to tolerate much in the way of competition for its established businesses. There wasn’t another town in the ‘Wealth big enough or with this kind of citizenry to support a similar lifestyle, either. Most of the settlements he’d seen in his time around the ‘Wealth were family-run, barely holding on and scraping by. Only the Raiders had these kinds of unified numbers, and there was no going into any of their territories. Not for someone like him, anyway.

Muscling his way over to the bar, he took up an abandoned stool when the guy sitting in it fell over onto the floor, passed out drunk and he was hauled away by two Triggermen guards. After a minute, he got the robot’s attention.

“Want a pint, mate?” it asked him.

“Got any Southie Stout?”

The robot bartender mumbled something under his breath that didn’t sound too much like a nice reply, and then one of his spindly metal arms held up a clean mug filled to the brim with a dark, rich beer. It had a thick, frothy head on it that made Shawn’s mouth water.

Shawn palmed some of the caps Vadim had fronted him for taking the job and handed them over in exchange for the brew. It was an extravagance he knew he shouldn’t really indulge, but he finally had the caps to try the stuff. Those snobs up in the stands at Diamond City drank the stuff like water, but down below, Southie was like fresh veggies: rare and expensive.

He sipped it now on Vadim’s coin, and found it ice cold and delicious.

“Looking for someone,” he told the bartender after downing half the mug and wiping the foam from his upper lip.

“Aren’t they all?” the robot replied, his British accent filled with a sinister kind of sarcasm. “A’right, who is it this time?”

“Name’s McGraw, drug addict, up from the Capital-”

“Yeah, I know ‘im.” The bartender waved one of his three mechanical arms towards a side room to the right of the bar, back behind some curtains. “Wanker’s in there, sleeping off a cocktail even I couldn’t mix for him.” The robot’s gears whirled and he seemed to shudder, as if an unpleasant thought occurred to him. “Just don’t open his throat down here, yeah? Blood stains are nearly impossible to get out…and Vic don’t like that sort o’ mess in his town.”

The way the robot spoke Goodneighbor’s mayor’s name, as if afraid of summoning the guy… Seemed everyone in this town knew to steer clear of angering this ‘Vic’ fella. Made Shawn curious as to why that was.

After that, the Mister Handy moved on down the bar to clean some glasses, and Shawn took his time enjoying the rich, chocolate-nutty flavor of his brew, since his target was apparently out cold and going nowhere for a while. When he’d finished it, he’d shouted a thanks at the bartender _—“Me name’s Whitechapel Charlie, but you can call me Whitechapel Charlie, understand?”_ —and headed through the curtains into the side room to get this job over and done.

McGraw was, as Charlie had said, passed out in a chair in the corner. There were a few mercs in the room, too, sitting away from the guy as if afraid of catching something from him. _Gunners,_ he thought with a sneer, and passed them without comment, although he kept one good eye on them.

When he reached McGraw, he saw what a bad shape the man was in and knew he wouldn’t be conscious for a while. This presented a problem for Shawn, as he wanted to be gone from Goodneighbor in the morning. By the way slaps was looking, though, slumped over in the chair and sawing logs like a beaver, he’d be lucky to be awake by tomorrow afternoon.

“Alright, up and at ‘em, big guy,” he said and bent to pull McGraw up, throwing him over his shoulder. It took Shawn a moment to readjust the guy so he didn’t knock them both over, but when he was good to go, he turned…to find the mercs in the place all looking at him with suspicion. “He’s a friend of mine,” he lied, and then made his way past them and out the door.

As he passed the bar, people made way for him, glancing at him and his passed-out cargo with curiosity. He turned to Charlie. “Need a room.”

“Hotel Rexford,” the robot told him, waving an arm towards the Third Rail’s exit. “Up the stairs, turn left, left again. Look for the sign. Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.” Shawn fished in his pocket for a cap, and tossed it at the robot. The thing caught it with one of its arms, snatched it right out of the air with ease. Fast bugger. “Much appreciated.”

“Anytime, mate,” Charlie told him, doffing his hat with another arm while the one with the cap disappeared behind the bar.

Following Charlie’s instructions, Shawn dragged his unconscious mark all the way up to the Hotel, which was right where Charlie said it would be. Along the way, Goodneighbor security gave him the eye, but he merely nodded at them and kept moving. No one tried to stop him…not even the hoard of ghoul refugees that had made it here from Diamond City and who were currently camped out on the street, setting up makeshift sleeping areas out of whatever refuse they could find or had carried with them across Boston.

Shawn felt an ache in his chest watching those frail, exhausted bodies making do, not complaining, but clearly terrified of their uncertain future.

He knew just how they felt.

As he entered the hotel, there were a few loiterers hanging around in the small lobby, including one old man in a newsboy cap and a padded blue jacket that called out to McGraw and laughed at his predicament. Shawn ignored the fool and went to the front desk. The old bag behind it had a sour lemon look on her face as she took him in from head to toe.

“Payment due up front,” she growled at him. “Ten caps.”

Juggling the weight he was carrying, which was now starting to get seriously heavy, Shawn reached into one of his side pouches and pulled out the amount needed, putting it down on the counter in front of him. The woman looked twice at it to be sure it wasn’t fake and then she passed him a key and instructed him where to go.

“Third floor?” he asked with a heavy sigh. Fuck, he’d already carried his burden up a flight and down the street. His legs and arms would be screaming by the time he got there. “Nothing on the first or second?”

The lady gave him a flat look. “Third. Floor.”

“Shit,” he grumbled under his breath and headed on up.

When he got to the top, he thought his lungs were going to explode from his chest and his limbs were more than a little shaky. He’d bucked up since leaving the vault, yeah, but he wasn’t Grognak, for fuck’s sake!

Entering his room, he tossed McGraw onto the only bed and fell back onto the small sofa to catch his breath. _Fucker better be worth it,_ he thought, and leaned his head back, closing his eyes for just a second.

He woke hours later feeling groggy and with a nasty kink in his neck…only to find McGraw gone and the door to his room left wide open.

Mother. Fucker.

The little rat fink had run!

Arms and legs still aching from yesterday’s workout, Shawn got up and headed out, hoping his prey was still somewhere on Goodneighbor property.

Fortunately for him, the idiot was attempting to make a chem deal with the old man in the lobby Shawn had passed the night before. He was whining and begging like only an addict could manage. Shawn came up behind him and pressed his gun into the man’s spine.

“No more drugs for this one,” he told the old man in the blue jacket. “Least not until I get the money he owes a friend of mine.”

McGraw put his hands up slowly, knowing he was beat for now. “Who sent you?” he asked, once the drug pusher moved off and left them alone.

“Vadim Bobrov.”

The guy dropped his head on his neck and his shoulder slumped. “I was going to pay him back.”

“Then why’d you run?”

McGraw’s hands shook, and he was sweaty and stank of booze and a body that hadn’t bathed in a while. “You know why,” he said in a broken voice.

“’Cause you _can’t_ pay him, even though you want to.”

“Yeah.”

Shawn was torn. Vadim had been clear that he was to muscle up a few caps for the trouble, but it was clear this guy didn’t have two to rub together. He looked…defeated. Despite the fact it was clear he’d once been built big, now he was too thin, gaunt even, and his handsome face was pockmarked with scabs—the sign of a serious Ultra Jet addict. His skin was gray, his ginger hair and matching beard had gone nearly white and both were limp and greasy, and his eyes were dull.

The wasteland had beaten him.

Shit.

He turned to the junkie seller. “You got any Addictol?”

“Well, yeah, man. But it’ll cost ya.”

Shawn knew he was going to regret this. “How much?”

 


	5. Guilty All The Same

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Zimmer is the leader of the Institute's Synth Retention Bureau, who temporarily stayed at Rivet City in 2277 in Fallout 3 (Quest: "The Replicated Man").
> 
> Harkness (Synth A3-21) is a security guard in Rivet City in Fallout 3. Apparently, he also shows up in Fallout Shelter as a minor character you can interact with, but I've disregarded that fact for this story.

* * *

 

One-hundred caps and one of his boot knives in trade for the Addictol, and Shawn was officially broke.

Lucky for him, the lady at the counter thought he’d done a good thing giving McGraw the way to clear up his chem addiction, and she’d comped him a room for the rest of the day and night so the guy could sleep off the effects.

Another person lingering in the lobby and eavesdropping, a junk seller named Rufus Rubins, also took pity on him and gave him a linen sack filled with two tins of Cram, two BlamCo Mac and Cheeses, a Fancy Lads Snack Cakes box with three of the cakes still inside, and four cans of Purified Water to eat so he and McGraw wouldn’t starve.

Thanking everyone for their unexpected kindness, he dragged his woozy ‘patient’ back up the stairs to the same room they’d occupied the night before and let the man rest. He saved back two of the waters and a Cram and a BlamCo, but hungrily downed the rest as he waited for McGraw's detox to start.

Throughout the day, he was forced to drag his 'patient' into the bathroom down the end of the hall so the guy could vomit up the contents of his empty stomach. While he was there this last time, he’d finally decided he couldn’t take the smell anymore, and stripped McGraw of his filthy rags and tossed him into the tub. Using a metal bucket, he filled it from the sink and then tossed it over McGraw’s shivering, half-conscious body. Using the cake soap on the sink’s edge, he lathered up an old rag hanging on a hook and forced it into McGraw’s trembling hand, directing the guy in cleaning himself. He’d been forced to wash his hair and beard the same way, too. A few final buckets of cold water tossed over him rinsed him off and he was finally clean…and fully awake.

Naked and dripping water onto the wooden floor, McGraw made his way back to the room with Shawn’s help. Inside one of the dressers were two threadbare towels that had seen better days. Still, they were enough to get the job done of drying off one scrawny human.

Exhausted from just that much, the guy lay back on the bed, one of the towels draped over his privates. He conked out again almost immediately.

Shawn returned to the bathroom and washed McGraw’s rags in the tub next. The things were disgusting, but he didn’t have anything else for the guy to wear, having only packed a change of underwear and socks, thinking this would be a quick one-day trip. He used the soap on them until the water ran clear, and then wrung them out as best he could.

Back in the room, he hung McGraw’s things up in the small closet on some metal wire hangers and let them drip dry. He then used the remaining towel to clean up the water everywhere in the bathroom, hallway, and in the closet.

That took the rest of the afternoon to finish, and by then the sun had gone down once more. With nothing to do, and thinking it likely that McGraw wouldn’t try to run again, he headed back down to the lobby to talk to Rufus, and the chem dealer, who he learned was named Fred Allen. He got their stories, as well as that of the old lady, Clair Hutchins, and told them a little about himself.

“A Vault resident!” Rufus said, sounding awed. “Which Vault would that be?”

“One-eleven,” Shawn told him. “But it’s sealed up now. Can’t get back in. The computers locked it down once I was let out. I was the only survivor.” It was the same lie he’d been telling most people, to avoid having them raid the place and potentially kill his family in the doing. In the whole world, only Piper and Dutch knew the truth…well, them and the mysterious person who had let him out to begin with. “Not that I’d want to go back in. The place was infested with Radroaches and Molerats. Burrowed in through the ventilation system. I barely made it out alive.”

As usual, the light of interest died out in the eyes of his audience members, and he knew they’d bought his story.

“Molerats, huh? Diseased little blighters,” Clair said from her spot behind the desk. “No thanks.”

By then, it was late. Clair was turning in for the night, and the front desk was set to be manned by some mobster working for a guy named Marowski, who had an office set up in the back. Fred and Rufus were going up to their rooms on the second floor, and Shawn bid them ‘good night’ as he went on up to the third.

McGraw was awake and sitting up by the time he got back in and shut the door behind him.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

Guy certainly looked it. His skin was no longer gray, and his light brown eyes were sharp and clear.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said and pulled the towel up over him, assured it was covering as much of his torso, hips, and thighs as possible. The look on his face said he’d done it more out of embarrassment than for modesty’s sake. “Why are you helping me?”

Shrugging, Shawn reached into the linen sack and pulled out the BlamCo, thinking it was plain enough for the guy’s stomach to handle. He tossed it at him. McGraw caught it, if not a little clumsily, his coordination still off as the Addictol ran through his system and purged it of his chem cravings. He just stared at the box, as if he wasn’t sure about trusting it quite yet, although it was obvious he was dying to tear into it.

“’Cause someone helped me once,” he replied. “Just returning the favor.” He leaned forward and pegged the guy with a stare that brooked no argument. “But you _are_ going to pay back what you owe Vadim. You ain’t... _aren't_ getting a free pass on that.”

McGraw looked down at his shaking hands. “Only thing I’m good at is soldering and getting high,” he admitted. “But I can’t do either anymore, so I’m not sure how I’ll earn the caps.”

“You’re an ex-Gunner, then?”

The thought had Shawn calculating where his weapons were in the room and how fast he could get to them if McGraw’s training decided to kick in at any moment.

The guy sneered. “Join that loser squad? No way. I am… _was_ …Brotherhood.”

Shawn frowned, having never heard the term. “Who?”

“Brotherhood of Steel.”

“Who’re they?”

McGraw seemed surprised that Shawn didn’t recognize the name, as if his gang was somehow hot shit and everyone knew of ‘em. “Only the second largest military organization in the country, less in numbers than the NCR, but certainly bigger and better than the Enclave or the Legion.”

Shaking his head, Shawn told him, “Man, you’re speaking gibberish to my ears right now. Who the hell are _they?_ ”

“Holy mother of fire, where have you been hiding, son, not to know the largest governing factions left in the country?”

Shawn shifted, trying to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy, old sofa. His back was killing him after the last day and a half’s monkeying around, and this bloody piece of crap furniture wasn’t helping the sitch.

“I’m kind of what you might call new to the world,” he admitted, wincing at a twinge in his lower spine. “A lot’s changed since I was a kid.”

McGraw’s gaze narrowed in on him, and then it was as if all the lights came on for him at the same time as he got a good look at what Shawn was wearing under all the patchwork armor.

“You’re from a Vault!”

“So they tell me.” He shrugged, trying to make no big thing out of it and thinking up another lie on the fly about it. “Place is buried under tons of rubble now, though, so hardly matters. Roof collapsed when I escaped. No going back.”

“I met someone from a Vault a few years back in the Capital Wasteland. She claimed to have come from Vault 101 and helped my squad of Outcasts break into a pre-war compound to recover some tech.” His lips curled at the fond memory. “She had guts, that one—a tiny thing, but tough as steel. Stood up to a mutiny, and helped me put it down. I’d have died without her help.” His smile was lost a beat later and a dark cloud passed over his face as the memory turned in McGraw’s head, leading somewhere nasty. “Cost me half the squad, though…and my commission. I was demoted from ‘Protector’ to ‘Defender’.”

“That why you became a junkie?”

“No, but it was a big push in that direction,” the guy admitted. “That happened when some of us started to become…disillusioned by our new leader’s goals. See, the Outcasts were Brotherhood members who went A.W.O.L. from the organization over a fundamental disagreement in the mission, but some of us only left the Brotherhood out of loyalty to our de factor leader, Henry Casdin. Casdin felt, as I did, that the Brotherhood had lost its way.”

Now here was a story Shawn hadn’t heard yet, and found he was interested in knowing more. “How so?”

“First, you need to understand that the Brotherhood’s primary duty has always been to secure pre-war technology, to keep it out of the hands of those who would use it to start another war.”

“Like this ‘Enclave’ you mentioned?”

McGraw nodded. “Exactly. The Enclave is a dangerous foe because they’re unpredictable and convinced they’re the rightful rulers of what’s left of this nation. They claim to be working for the old government, although that’s up for debate as they’re too secretive to know for sure. One thing that’s clear, though, is that they’re a technologically advanced enemy, well-trained and armed to the teeth, even if they’re small in number.”

“And the ‘NCR’ you mentioned?”

“The New California Republic. They’re a bunch of rich bureaucrats and cowboys playing at settlement building out west. But they’re also a huge force, primarily because they’re damned successful at creating towns and offering protection to ordinary folks. Their recruitment is twenty times that of the Brotherhood, and fifty times that of the Enclave. But for all their strength in numbers, they’ve still got a morale issue. Also, the last I’d heard, they had a serious problem with the Legion up around New Vegas in the Nevada sands.”

“The Legion? What is that, like some kind of Raider gang?”

The guy shrugged. “Pretty much. Caesar’s Legion is modeled after-”

“A Roman army?” Shawn asked, remembering his Western History classes back in high school and recognizing the term ‘Caesar’. “In the desert?” He scoffed at the idea.

“I wouldn’t laugh, if I were you. They’re the most ruthless enemy the Brotherhood on either coast has ever faced,” McGraw admitted. “They crucify and burn their prisoners alive, and enslave whole settlements to serve their needs. They’re fanatics and their followers are totally devoted to their leader.”

Damn, the rest of the world was just as seriously fucked as the ‘Wealth, wasn’t it? Seemed his home turf wasn’t the only place in some serious need of repair.

“So what happened to turn you into-” He waved at McGraw, who was still as naked as the day he was born and looked as if he’d walked ten-thousand miles without a break. “-this?”

Readjusting the towel at his hips, his ‘guest’ seemed suddenly embarrassed by what he’d become, and as Shawn gave him a good once-over, he could see why. It was clear the man, who appeared to be in his mid-forties, going by the white in his hair and on his chest, had once been in formidable shape. His shoulders were as wide as Shawn’s, and there was the definition of what used to be strength in his muscles, but addiction had taken its toll. Starvation, probably a result of the guy using all his caps to buy chems rather than food, had caused his body to start cannibalizing itself. His ribs were just beginning to show.

It seemed he’d found McGraw and cleaned him up just in the nick of time.

“After I left the Brotherhood, I follow Casdin’s lead, and to be honest, we were doing the job, and doing it damned well. Then about four years ago, Casdin…changed. He’d gone to Rivet City, a city housed inside an abandoned cargo ship floating on the waters of the Capital. There he met a man named Dr. Zimmer, who claimed to work for the Institute.”

Shawn sat up at the mention of the ‘Wealth’s ‘Boogeyman’, paying close attention to every word McGraw said about them, because he knew Dutch would want to know this shit later.

“Zimmer was looking for an escaped synth,” the guy continued. “Funny, for all our delving into tech, we didn’t even know what he meant by that word at the time. The Brotherhood had had no presence in the Commonwealth prior to when we Outcasts splintered from them, and we didn’t have a spy inside the Brotherhood after that to tell us what they were up to on a regular basis. We didn’t know that they’d already sent a Recon Squad led by a veteran named Brandis up here to snoop around because they’d heard rumors from caravans about the Institute and their technologically-advanced ‘synths’. Zimmer was the one to leak that intel to us.” He shook his head. “It seemed the Institute was already keeping tabs on the Brotherhood’s movements across the country, which was how he knew that the Outcasts had broken away from them…and why he felt he could approach us to help him. We weren’t being funded by the Brotherhood anymore once we left their ranks, and the sad fact was we needed caps for food, water, basic medical supplies—that sort of thing. We had the training and expertise Zimmer needed for his task, but without the priggish sense of pride of the Brotherhood to stand in the way. We were desperate enough to take him up on his offer, and he knew that as well.”

“What’d he ask you to do?”

Those pale, tired shoulders gave a small shrug. “He paid good caps so we’d pick up the trail of his missing synth, which had gone cold. He was determined to get the thing back under his control for some reason. The man was obsessed, if you asked me.”

Shawn was careful in how he worded his next question. “Did you capture the synth for him?”

McGraw’s expression shifted, blanked, but there was a moment in between when Shawn was sure he saw the pain of regret in his eyes. “I did. He was hiding in plain sight, pretending to be a security guard for Rivet City. His name was Harkness, and I collared him for Zimmer…and earned back my rank as ‘Protector’.”

His mouth twisted with cynicism and bitterness at that, as if the idea was abhorrent to him now.

“Why does that bother you?” Shawn asked, sincerely wanting to understand McGraw’s aversion to what he’d done. “Synths aren’t people.”

The man looked at him then, and Shawn was taken aback by the anger that was directed his way. “They’re more human than most humans I know,” McGraw stated, very assured. “They aren’t just plastic, metal, and wires, despite what you’ve been told. They’re living tissue, organs, nerves, blood, and bone. They see, hear, taste, feel, smell just like us. They laugh, they cry, they get angry and hurt, they fuck and get pleasure from it. _Just like us._ ”

“But they’re not born like we are,” Shawn argued. “They’re made and controlled by the Institute. They look like us, but…man, they’re _not_ us.”

The former soldier pulled his legs in tight to his body, the towel’s positioning no longer a concern for him as his thoughts pulled inward. His eyes, furious just the moment before, now conveyed such sorrow that it seemed impossible that one person could feel that much sadness. “You know, I told myself the same thing, over and over again, for a thousand nights after that day. But what Zimmer did to Harkness in front of us… It made what the Legion does to their victims look like child’s play.” His voice cracked, he choked and tears filled his eyes. “That poor bastard felt every joint they dislocated, every volt of electricity they sent screaming into his spine, every fingernail they tore from him, and he screamed and begged for them to stop hurting him. They didn’t care. They didn’t have pity. They just cut into his belly, pulled out his guts, drilled into his skull… It took him hours to die. And Casdin did nothing about it. He just stood back and watched. Didn't say a damned thing!”

He covered his eyes with a shaking hand, attempting to hide from what he’d done.

“The synth...he cried at the end, whimpering like a little kid who was lost and scared. He knew he was dying, but he kept praying, ‘Father…Father!’ He kept hoping his old man would save him, right up to the end.” McGraw lost it completely then, openly sobbing. “Lord Almighty, he’d called out for his _daddy_ with his last breath, and only then did they tell him the truth: that he didn't have one.”

So this was the answer to the man's devastating drug habit; he'd been hiding from the memories and his guilt in the Jet.

"They didn't just kill that synth," McGraw continued when he'd calmed a bit. He swiped at his dripping nose with the back of his hand, but his eyes... He was a haunted soul by what he knew, and Shawn wasn't sure he'd done the guy any favors by sobering him up enough to remember that fact. "They destroyed Harkness, in every way you can destroy someone."

"I'm sorry," Shawn said, even knowing the sympathy would fall on deaf ears. McGraw's gums were flapping but the man was back inside his head.

He talked on, as if Shawn had never interrupted. The dam had burst and there was no putting it back.

"They broke me that day, too. I finally saw I'd made a mistake in following a bastard like Casdin, a man without honor, without a conscience. He'd convinced me the mission was more important than the people, but he was wrong. The mission _serves_ the people. It's nothing without them. Elder Lyons had it right." He sniffed, choked back another sob. "I was so wrong."

To his surprise, as McGraw’s story finally ended and the ex-soldier turned away, rolling onto his side to stare at the wall in misery, Shawn found that  _he_ was tearing up as well. 

Truthfully, he hadn’t expected to feel sympathy for a synth. Dutch did, but he’d never understood why or what they were really like until just this moment. Listening to the ex-soldier’s account, learning about their capacity to feel and how they were comparable to humans in their behaviors, it hit him hard in the chest and in the head.

These robots weren’t just _things_ , like a vacuum cleaner or a pipe rifle, were they? They’d been given the ability to reason, to think on their own, and to act and feel as they saw fit. They were sentient, like in the comics he’d read as a kid and in the SciFi movies he’d watched on the big screen. But that had been obvious to him for a while, hadn’t it? Take Nick Valentine. Shawn had seen him around Diamond City plenty of times, talked to him twice. The guy was clearly a synth, yet he actually _helped_ people, like Dutch did, and he did it not because some guy with a keyboard programmed him to do so, but because he wanted to. He _chose_ to, of his own free will. That showed independent thinking, proof that he was his own man.

And then there was Whitechapel Charlie, who’d clearly gone beyond his programming and developed his own personality, too; that accent of his and the fact he’d decorated himself with a bowler hat and a U.K. pride sticker wasn’t factory setting, he was willing to bet. Charlie was capable of individual decision-making and having preferences of his own, too. 

They were both products of a world turned inside-out and gone upside-down, and yet…they were as real and alive as he was, technically. Different parts, different fluids, different designs, but essentially the same, just like a motorcycle, a bus, and a car were all transportation vehicles.

The people in Diamond City didn’t see it that way, though, just as Shawn hadn’t seen it until just this second. Aside from Piper and maybe Nat, the rest of ‘em all hated synths on principal, were afraid of them and what they symbolized…the same as they’d hated ghouls. They considered anyone different as ‘freaks’, and therefore they were labeled as being more threatening and worth less.

He was a freak, too. His two different colored eyes said so.

Pondering over that truth and what it all meant, Shawn sat deeper into the couch and let the sounds of McGraw’s remorse wash over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep in mind that Shawn's knowledge of the world post-war is limited to his experiences over the past ~two years. He's still learning who people and factions are, especially those with less of an active role in the Commonwealth. The Brotherhood/Outcasts, NCR, Legion, and Enclave would probably not have been mentioned much, if at all, in his presence, as those factions exist outside of the Commonwealth (and it's not like he's picking the brains of traders willing to trek outside the known area). 
> 
> Also, the Institute is still relatively unknown to most people at this time - they're mostly rumors with some residual memory of negative past events that is kept alive through oral tradition (and Piper's paper). The Sole Survivor is the first to unravel their mystery, really. But that won't happen for a few years yet, in game time.


	6. Searching for Shelter

* * *

 

A little while later, Shawn left the ex-Brotherhood soldier sleeping off another round of exhaustion, thanks to the Addictol running through his system. Fred had told him it could be a one or a two-day process before the chems were fully out of McGraw’s system, so he’d have to pay Clair for another day if the guy didn’t improve by morning.

For the time being, though, his detoxing roommate was out cold and probably would remain so for hours yet. Enough time for Shawn to check out Goodneighbor proper. He headed down to the lobby to find the mobster behind the desk, reading an old pre-war newspaper, and the place otherwise deserted. Seemed Fred and Rufus had gone to bed already.

Out on the street, ghouls were everywhere, bunking down on the sidewalks, backs against buildings, or walking around in an apparent daze, unsure as to what to do now or what their future would bring. They looked like a herd of sheep that’d lost their shepherd.

After the revelation he’d had upstairs earlier, Shawn was feeling the twisty-turning sensation of sympathy writhing around in his guts the longer he stood there and looked at the misery all around.

When he'd escaped into the vault before the bombs fell, he'd run past countless others, people he'd known all his life from his tiny neighborhood and from school—even his own childhood best friend! He'd known that none of those desperately scared people were going to be allowed safety or, ironically, sanctuary in the vault, and that they would die while standing outside at the fence, begging to be let through. He'd left them behind, though, too afraid to stand up and do the right thing, to fight to get them into the vault. Shit, he'd even left Max, his dog, behind. Ten years of unconditional loyalty and love to him, and he'd just left Max chained outside in the backyard without a care. Like a weak pussy boy, he'd given up and let his daddy pull him away...

No, he wasn't going to go there again! It had taken him months to control those destructive thoughts, to keep them from overwhelming him to the point where he became so filled with self-hate and despair that he stuck the end of his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.  _It wasn't my fault,_ he told himself, beginning the ritual that Dutch had invented for him to help during moments such as these. He closed his eyes, envisioned a TIME OUT box in his brain where he shoved all of the hurt and pain, and when he tugged at his hair until it hurt, the box lid shut and swallowed up those feelings, allowing him to let them go. Once again, it worked like a charm.

Feeling much more in control, centered and clear again, he looked around and came to a decision: he couldn't turn his back on people or synths in need ever again. He would do what he could to re-make— no to _make_ _better—_ the world his society had destroyed two-hundred years before. Dutch would do the same in a heartbeat, he knew, and Shawn wanted to be the kind of man his best friend could be proud of, maybe even someday come to love.

That started here, now.

He considered how much coin he had left in his pockets. Vadim had given him one-hundred caps for this job, but he was supposed to be bringing him back close to five-hundred in exchange. It didn’t seem as if McGraw was going to be able to deliver on that end, and he’d already used up eighteen caps between the room and the beer. How was he ever going to make-up the difference in only a few days?

He looked around at all of the cold, exhausted ghouls, glanced up at the sky where it looked to rain again tonight, and then he reached into his pocket and palmed his pouch full of remaining caps. With a sigh, he resigned himself to the idea that he’d be working off Vadim’s money another way and hoped the guy understood.

He went back inside to talk to the mobster behind the hotel desk, told the guy his plan, and asked if he could also rent out the lobby space.

“A hundred,” the thug said.

“Fifty, not a cap more,” he countered. “Or we can let them stay out there in the rain until they riot and break down the doors to get inside. Then you’ll get nothing and still be stuck with a hotel filled with ghouls.”

The man growled, but finally agreed, especially after Shawn threw him his super-special smile. Seemed pinky was receptive to his flirtations.

When he collected the keys to the other hotel rooms for let, he went back outside, and began quietly gathering the ghouls and leading them into the hotel. It was tight, cramming six and seven to a room, but thankfully some of the couches were fold-out beds, and the ghouls were willing to share any available space, even the floors. Getting inside after their long trek through the dangerous city and staying dry and warm was more important than snoring neighbors or funky smells.

Fortunately, only five of them needed to sleep in the lobby, but there was still plenty of room for more.

One of the female ghouls reached out and snagged his arm as he made to pass by. “Bless you,” she said, her voice ravaged by the radiation damage. She was an advanced-stage ghoul, her eyes black as sin, her hair totally gone and her nose too, but her smile was gentle, as was her touch.

Uncomfortable with the praise, Shawn fidgeted. “I’ll probably be heading out tomorrow, so you’re going to have to figure out where you’ll be staying after tonight,” he told her, trying not to sound too grim at that tragic fact. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. This was more kindness than any of us could have ever expected,” she said, “especially after Diamond City.”

Awkwardly, he patted the back of her hand and set it gently down on the couch’s arm. “Last couple of days sucked for all of us. Tomorrow…it’ll get better.”

“You’re a good man,” she murmured, closing her eyes, leaning back against the cushion and settling down under a ragged brown coat that served as her blanket. “I won’t forget it.”

Shawn headed for the door, needing a drink.

As he stepped out and down onto the street, someone leaning against the wall called out to him, “A Vaultie, huh? No wonder you’re such a bleedin’ heart. The ‘Wealth ain’t stamped it out of you yet.”

He turned…

His stomach flipped again, but this time in a way that had both his throat and his prick going tight.

The stranger was a knock-out. The kind of guy you’d see on the covers of _Live & Love_ magazine, walking out the door while some hot chick in the background reached for him, begging him to come back for a round two. Short blond hair streaked with white-gold, light grey eyes, chiseled jaw, full lips, barely-there shadow of a moustache and beard growing in from a few days missing a shave. He was shorter than Shawn by several inches and was built lean, but what he lacked in size and muscle, he seemed to make up for in presence. Just leaning against the hotel, arms crossed, one knee bent, he was the epitome of cool.

“You gonna say something, or just stare?” the man demanded.

Swallowing hard, Shawn said the first thing that popped into his head.

“Hasn’t.”

The guy’s brows furrowed. “What?”

“The ‘Wealth _hasn’t_ stamped it out of me yet, no.” Had he really just said something that dumb? Christ, he was channeling Piper now. Way to make a first impression! “I-I mean-”

“You correcting me, kid?”

Shawn swore under his breath. He was buggering the whole thing up, looking like a fool…which just made him all kinds of testy. Wiping a hand over his eyes, he realized how exhausted he really was all of a sudden, too, and that didn’t help his descent into a foul mood. “Look, whoever you are, it’s been a long few days, I’ve seen a lot of fucked up shit that pissed me off, and nothing’s going my way. On top of that, I’m beat to hell and ready to collapse. So stop yanking my chain and tell me what you want.”

“You’re tired? And yet you gave up your room to a bunch of strangers—to ghouls,” the guy pointed out with a nudge of that perfect chin back the way Shawn had come. “You bought out a whole hotel for them. And you used good caps to buy Addictol for a junkie loser to help clean him up—word gets around fast here. Tell me, what kind of person does _that_ kind of shit for total strangers _?_ ”

“Let me save us both the trouble: you’re going to say only an idiot with no common sense, obviously,” Shawn growled, “and you’d be right.”

The blond had the audacity to smirk at that, as if he was amused by the smart-talk, and damn if the look didn’t do wonders for Shawn’s neglected libido.

“Nah, an idiot would’ve missed the knife at my hip...which you didn’t do, did you?”

Yeah, Shawn had seen that one right off, as well as the other. “And the one in your boot.”  

Hot piece laughed, and it was a sinister, sexy sound that hit Shawn in all the right places. “I like you, kid. You’ve got balls," he said and pushed off the wall, walking towards him. “Name’s John.” He held his hand out. “Buy ya a drink?”

Shawn stared at those long fingers, strong and capable of all sorts of violence…among other things, and tried not to look too interested in the latter. He took the hand and shook it.

“I’m Shawn. Sure, I could use one.”

They turned at the same time and headed towards the Third Rail, side-by-side, their strides relatively even.

“You drink Southie?” he asked, testing his new ‘friend’.

John chuckled, and once more Shawn was that easily entranced.

“Oh, I’ve got something better than Southie in mind for you, bud.”

The threat should have put Shawn on high alert, but his instincts told him John meant him no harm. If the guy had wanted to, he could have simply knifed Shawn in the back the second he’d stepped out of the Hotel Rexford tonight. More, it seemed he’d been genuinely curious about the things Shawn had been doing around town the last day or so, but not for a nefarious reason. It was almost as if Shawn puzzled him, and a person who was going to kill you generally wasn’t curious about your do-gooder motivations with others.

Nope, if John had wanted him dead, Shawn had no doubts he’d be dead already. That meant blondie didn’t mean him any harm.

But then, what did he want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shawn's stats are as follows:  
> Strength = 6  
> Perception = 7  
> Endurance = 5  
> Charisma = 9 (has Fallout 4 perk "Lady Killer" and I gave him the Fallout: New Vegas perk "Confirmed Bachelor")  
> Intelligence = 6  
> Agility = 4  
> Luck = 3
> 
> This is how I picture John McDonough for this story:  
> 


	7. The Pieces Fit, The Puzzle's Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mayor McDonough isn't given a first name in game canon, so I named him 'Michael' for this story.

* * *

 

 

From the Jukebox’s speakers, Billy Ward and The Dominoes were going on about fifteen minutes and keeping the Rail’s crowd entertained as Shawn and his new companion joined them.

Making their way to the bar, Charlie greeted them with his usual brand of cheer.

“So, you buyin’ or what?”

Shawn chuckled. The robot sure had a mouth on him. “Yeah, two ice-cold Southies, please.”

“ _Please,_ he says,” Charlie muttered, retrieving what Shawn wanted. He cracked the caps off the bottles and kept them. “Well, seein’ as how you asked so nicely, that’ll be eight caps. Each.”

The going rate.

Shawn felt his balls shrink at the cost, but he reached into his pocket to fish out the money. John stopped him, fronting the caps instead. “Thanks, tin can,” he said, and passed Shawn one of the bottles. “Let’s grab a seat, have a talk.”

They took two stools next to each other down the end of the bar, furthest from the jukebox, and tapped their bottles together before taking a pull off of them. Shawn was feeling awkward that John had paid, but the guy seemed a-okay with that plan, so he offered him a, “thanks” for the kindness.

John shrugged it off. “So, Vaultie, tell me why you did it.”

“Did what?”

“Helped all those ghouls.”

He picked at the Southie label on his bottle, peeling it off in pieces. “Why’s it matter?”

He could feel John staring at him, was aware of those intense, gray eyes and the unexpected effect they had on him.

“It matters,” the guy stated. “And I’m pretty sure you know why.”

Shawn tsked. “It wasn’t fair. What was done to them wasn’t right. They’re people.”

“A lot of folks don’t think so.”

Sighing, Shawn lifted the bottle to this mouth again. “Fuck ‘em, then. They’re heartless assholes.” He took a big swig off his drink to cover up the blush he could feel heating his cheeks. “Ghouls are people, same as you and me. Not their fault they’ve got a medical condition. They didn’t ask for it, for fuck’s sake.” He glanced down at his hand, wrapped tightly around the bottle. “We all need to be better than this. Otherwise…we’ll really have lost the war.”

When John didn’t say anything in reply for a long while, Shawn glanced at him sideways. The guy was doing a lot of staring at his drink, as if mulling over what had been said.

The silence was getting awkward again, so Shawn gave his drinking buddy a nudge. “What’s your story, then?” he asked, feeling the beer finally settling in his belly and warming him from the inside. With it, his confidence was slightly bolstered. “Why do _you_ care so much?”

“Same reason as you, I guess,” John confessed, that voice of his a sexy growl that Shawn realized the guy unconsciously wielded as a weapon, same as his eyes and that mouth. Those good genes had probably netted him a boatload of lovers over the years, he was willing to bet. “World’s all fucked up. We don’t need to be adding to it by tearing each other apart.”

“Heard that,” Shawn agreed, finishing off his beer.

Next to him, John did the same.

They set their bottles down on the bar at exactly the same moment, right next to each other, like that shit had been choreographed in advance or they were sharing a brain.

They both paused, looked over at each other in surprise, the coincidence too bizarre to be normal. Then they broke into matching grins and shared a laugh, and Shawn knew he’d just made a new life-long friend.

 

* * *

 

They’d both enjoyed a second Southie, and then Shawn was introduced to the joys of Bourbon. The sweet, smoky flavored drink was smooth as it hit the back of his throat, and warm going down. It was like chocolate cake and a good cigar rolled into one, better than the Stout, which also had a bit of the same dark flavor.

“Oh, man, this shit is _so_ good,” Shawn admitted, eyeing the finger-width left at the bottom of his glass. “I could like this.”

John slapped him on the shoulder, let his hand linger there, and Shawn felt that touch heat him right to the core.

“Careful,” John cautioned him with a sinful grin, “booze is addicting.”

“Most of the best things are, I hear.”

His companion laughed in agreement, bought the bottle from Whitechapel Charlie, and they went into the curtained-off room to the side of the bar and finished it in less than an hour. John ordered another bottle, and they worked their way through that one, too. To be fair, John drank most of the stuff; the guy seemed to have a tolerance level that Shawn would never be able to match.

Hours passed. Stories were swapped, with careful editing by both of them obviously, but Shawn did learn one important thing about John: he was Mayor McDonough’s youngest brother…and the guy despised his brother for what he’d done to the ghouls. They bonded over that, clinking glasses and toasting to Michael McDonough rotting in hell, sooner rather than later.

“Hey, how come I never saw you around town?” Shawn asked sometime later, feeling the alcohol’s effects hit his nearly empty stomach with all the strength of a Deathclaw’s fist. It made him feel both stupid and daring. “I’d have remembered someone like you.”

John stared into his glass and grinned, like he knew he was gorgeous and enjoyed the effect it had on others. “Someone like me, huh?” He threw back another mouthful of his drink. “You mean a good-time party boy with a Jet addiction?”

That made Shawn’s mouth drop open and the alcohol did the rest of the blundering for him. “I meant someone as hot as fuck. But…you don’t look like an addict!”

Jesus, had he just said that?

John’s gaze slid sideways, his lips curling with sensual amusement. “You flirtin’ with me, kid?”

Was he?

“No. Yes. No. I mean…” He looked at his feet, head fuzzy and feeling guilty for lusting after someone else when he had Dutch. Didn’t he? “I’m kinda with someone. I think.”

“You think?”

John leaned forward over the arm of his chair and let his warm breath slide over Shawn’s sensitive ear as he murmured, “Don’t you know?”

Shawn took a deep breath, trying to clear his head a bit, trying to make sense of the wants of his body versus the desires in his heart. “We’re not… I’m not sure it means anything to him.”

His friend paused, as if he sensed the waters were a bit too murky for jumping in at this time. “But it does to you.”

Wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

John slowly moved away. “Well, that’s a damn shame. Things change, though, you let me know.”

Shawn looked at him. Their gazes locked. “But I’m different,” he blurted, letting the Bourbon do the talking now. Quickly, he was moving past happy drunk and into depressive mode, and pointed to his mismatched eyes to hammer that point. “I’m a freak. Why would you want this?”

John stared at him as if Shawn had missed the point and needed reminding. Then, he leaned over, grabbed the back of Shawn’s head, and pulled them together, claiming his mouth.

The kiss was expert, not sloppy or rushed. It gave as much as it took, and when their tongues met, they both groaned at the unexpected surge of desire that passed between them. All thought of Dutch fled Shawn’s mind in that moment, much to his later mortification when he relived the memory. There was only the taste and feel of John, the smell of his skin and the alcohol, and the ache in Shawn’s dick urging him on towards greater, more reckless needs…

It was John who actually pulled away first, albeit reluctantly.

“Hell,” the guy mumbled. “Knew it.”

“What?” Shawn asked, his voice a breathless whisper.

Their foreheads met, their Bourbon scented breaths mingled, and the moment was suddenly filled with possibilities that had Shawn’s heart pounding.

What was he doing? Dutch…

“You’re different alright,” John answered him in a hushed tone, and it was clear he wanted to close that distance between their mouths once more, but by some thread of wisdom held his baser instincts in check. “But definitely no freak. I know freaks, and you ain’t one. You're…a rare thing, special.” His free hand slid between Shawn’s legs and cupped his cock. Shawn groaned and jerked against that palm, seeking the friction. “But right now, all I can think about is getting some of this.”

Oh, fuck, it was all Shawn could think about, too! The fantasy of John sucking him off had him rolling his hips to create friction against the guy’s fingers and nearly coming in his pants.

Wait, this was wrong, wasn’t it? He shouldn’t want anyone else the way he’d wanted Dutch. He was in love with his best friend!

…His best friend wasn’t in love with him, though, was he?

The fact of the matter was Dutch had left. He’d gone off alone, hadn’t wanted Shawn to come with him. He hadn’t sent word in four weeks as to his whereabouts or even if he was coming back, either. There had been no discussion about what they'd done in that week they'd done it all, nor had either of them given it a label. There had been no 'I love you' or 'You're mine' or 'Wait for me', either, only fucking…and okay, a little love-making there their first and last time. Still, they weren’t really together, because Dutch wasn't committed to what they were. No promises or requests had been made.

That meant this wasn’t cheating, right?

“Fuck,” Shawn hissed, so hard the pressure of his jeans was starting to hurt. He hadn’t been this turned on in weeks. But his head was currently at war with his body, which was really screwing with the vibe. “I…I’m not sure. Dutch and me-”

John’s hands were gone a second later and he quickly stood up, kept his back to Shawn to deal with his own erection issues.

“S’okay, kid, we’re both more than a little drunk. No foul.”

Shawn scrambled to his feet as well and fixed himself the same. “S-sorry,” he stammered, feeling like a thirteen-year-old with a boner in class. His face was flaming hot. “It’s just, this guy I’m…seeing, I guess…we left things sort of hanging when he left. I don’t know-”

“We’re good, really.” John swiveled back around towards him, gave him a small smile filled with regret for what wouldn’t be. “Heart wants what it wants. I get it.” He reached up and put a comforting hand on Shawn’s shoulder, but in that moment Shawn felt like the smaller man. Even his cock had shriveled up in shame.

“I want to, but…”

“I know.”

An awkward silence descended, and it was clear their night of boozing was over.

“At least let me buy you another bottle of Southie,” he offered to take the sting out of the rejection. “One for the road.” No way could he afford something as classy as Bourbon, but a Stout he could do.

John looked up at him with those bedroom gray eyes and those pouty lips, and once more Shawn was smitten. Damn, the man really was a dream, wasn’t he?

“Sure,” his friend agreed.

They headed into the main room, which was mostly cleared out by then. Shawn checked the Nuka-Cola themed clock on the wall and was amazed to find it was nearly two in the morning. He and John had spent nearly six hours together!

He purchased a bottle of Southie from Charlie with his dwindling caps supply and passed it to John, who took it with an easy ‘thanks’ and a grin that made Shawn’s dick twitch with want again. Then they hit the stairs together, taking them slow, and not just because they were both still a little tipsy and exhaustion was settling in. Shawn got the impression that John was stalling, same as him. Every step brought them closer to parting, and it seemed neither was too keen for that moment.

By the time they’d hit the streets and the fresh air, Shawn’s nerves were shot to hell and his feet felt like sandbags were holding them down.

“You got a place to stay?” he asked, pausing just at the bottom step, postponing the inevitable.

John shrugged, looking out at the entry to the main strip as if considering the wisdom of cutting out immediately. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Okay.”

By the significant pause and lack of movement, it was clear neither of them wanted to say ‘good-night’ first, which Shawn found both amusing and bizarre.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m probably leaving tomorrow morning.”

“Technically, it _is_ tomorrow morning,” John pointed out.

“Yeah.”

Again with the awkward pauses.

“I’m…gonna go,” John finally said. He held his hand out to Shawn. “Listen, you ever need anything, you send word. I’ll be there, kid.”

As he stared at John’s hand again, something occurred to Shawn then, piercing through the semi-addled state of his brain. “You keep calling me that, but I’m not a kid, you know.”

John let out a heavy, hissing breath and dropped his offer to shake, instead running that same hand though his lovely, thick hair with a frustrated curse.

“Believe me I’m very aware of that fact.”

From the heat in John’s eyes, obviously the guy wasn’t referring to the fact that Shawn was technically over two-hundred years old and by all rights, a senior citizen.

“Fuck,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m swaying on my feet here, but the God’s honest truth? I don’t want you to go, John. I don’t want this night to end.”

“Yeah,” his friend admitted, clearly feeling the same pull as Shawn. “Me either, but there’s only one way it’s gonna go down tonight if we stick together, and we both know it.” He glanced up at Shawn, eyes half-lidded and heavy with regret. “You’d be thinking of _him_ the whole time and feel guilty afterward, and…I don’t want it to be like that.”

Shawn sighed, knowing John had nailed it and felt resigned to hating himself for having one-sided feelings for a man who’d dumped him and ran. John was… There was a real connection here, one that wasn’t just sexual and had potential for more, but his heart was stubborn and didn’t seem ready to give up on Dutch just yet.

He opened his mouth to apologize, but John beat him to the punch. “Say sorry again and I’ll introduce you to the sharp end of my knife.” It was an empty threat, and they both knew it, but it did the job of shutting Shawn’s ‘sorry’ down. “And anyway, I won’t be lonely for company tonight.” He held up the Southie and shook it. “Got me a date with some good brew and, if I’m still conscious after, maybe even some Sister Jet.”

That was another problem: John was an addict. Shawn didn’t think he could live with such a thing, honestly. He did the occasional chem, but it was recreational, maybe a few times a year. From how John had described it, he didn’t go a day without popping that shit into his body.

Maybe this was for the best after all. Friends, nothing more.

“Yeah, alright,” he replied.

John sighed, sounding defeated, and started walking away.

Shawn’s chest went tight.

“I’m glad I met you, John McDonough!” he called after the guy, suddenly overwhelmed by how much he wanted to say to him, but unsure where to start or how much was safe to utter aloud. In the end, all that came out was, “That offer goes both ways, you know. If you need help, I’ll come when you call. I’ll find you and stand with you.”

As far as he was concerned, that wasn’t just some dumb, cliché movie-ending thing to say, either. He meant it down to his soul. Despite the short duration of their acquaintance, the sudden and undeniable bond they’d accidentally discovered here tonight was going to be life-long, just like he’d suspected earlier.

John stopped, turning to give him a final once over. His lips curled into a smile, one that was a little sad.

“You, too, Shawn Cofran.”

With that, John headed off, going into some place called the Mind Den across the street.

Shawn watched him walk away, and as the Den’s door shut behind the guy, he once again felt as if he had been left behind by someone important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review? What do you think so far?


	8. The In-Between

* * *

 

Vadim wasn’t pleased to hear that McGraw didn’t have his money, but he was satisfied with a compromise of the ex-soldier working the caps off by serving as security for the Dugout Inn, to give Yefim a break.

“Thanks for understanding,” Shawn said, but was stopped from saying more by the look on Vadim’s face.

“I give McGraw a second chance…for you,” the man stated, and there was a dark tone to his voice that told Shawn that the guy would have preferred the ex-soldier’s throat cut, just to send a message to anyone else out there thinking to stiff him on caps. Seemed Shawn owed the man something for that mercy. “Before I come here, my people… Eh, we would say his life and debts are now _yours_ to carry _._ Understand?”

Shawn nodded. “He’s staying with me until he works or pays off what he owes you. If he runs…I’ll cover it. Somehow.”

Vadim’s hand clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. We agree. Now, I have another favor to ask.”

Favor, not a job. Meaning, there would be no payment offered for the work this time. However, he _had_ taken 100 caps from the guy in advance for the last job, which he had spectacularly failed, so he supposed he’d have to make up for it by at least succeeding at the next task set to him. Fair enough.

“Name it, boss.”

“Good man,” Vadim praised him, but it was clear that was also code for, “smart move, kid”.

Shawn didn’t understand how much of a soft spot Vadim had for him until later that night when McGraw found him at home and explained the situation. “He likes you,” the guy told him as he prepared for bed. Shawn had given him Dutch’s bunk for now, since his rommate was still absent without word. “We’ve both still got all of our fingers and ears.”

“What do you mean?”

His new roommate sat on the edge of the lumpy mattress and bent over to unlace his boots. “The Bobrov brothers have a reputation on the streets. They don’t kill.” He sat up, toeing off his loosened shoes. His socks had holes in the bottoms at both heels. “They maim. People who cross them generally go missing a body part later.”

“Oh.”

The ex-soldier snorted and lay back on the bed. He tossed Dutch’s ratty, olive-colored military blanket over his painfully thin body, clearly exhausted. “Didn’t you think it was a good idea to at least know who you’re working for before you go out hunting for them?”

“Didn’t you think it was a good idea not to go borrowing caps from men with that kind of a reputation?” Shawn countered. "'Sides, you're gonna be working for them starting tomorrow, so..."

"I owe you for arranging that."

"You pay me back by staying off the chems and working off your debt to Vadim. Clean and sober, go to work. That's all I ask."

McGraw was quiet for a bit after that, staring up at the aluminum ceiling far above, lost in his private thoughts. Shawn went over to the sink and took out the toothbrush and paste he’d swiped from the vault the last time he’d gone down there. He brushed his teeth, determined to at least keep this one tradition alive, to remind him of where he’d come from and what his ultimate goal was in regards to returning to the vault one day to free his family.

When he finished with his teeth, he drained the snake at the toilet and then flushed. Thank god the sewer system still seemed to work in the old stadium. Someone enterprising early on in the city’s life had hooked up all these rickety houses to its pipes, making flowing water still possible. Yeah, his and Dutch’s home might be situated somewhere over near where second and third bases had been once upon a time, and built mostly of rusting metal with some wooden beams and frames for support, and his water supply might be rationed, but at least he _had_ plumbing. Better than pissing in a back alley and washing up only with captured rainwater tainted by radiation.

By the time he turned in, McGraw was facing the opposite wall and snoring.

It took Shawn a while to fall asleep. Dutch rarely snored, and when he did, it was relatively quiet. The beaver sawing logs across the small room took some getting used to. He tried counting sheep, but ended up wide-eyed and staring at the grating far above that filtered in some of the moon. Silvery motes gently danced through the air in the beams of light. It reminded him of that last night with his best friend…

 _Dutch, where are you?_ He wondered again, and worried that something bad had happened to him. If only he'd insisted in going along. If only he knew more about the guy’s contacts. If only he didn’t owe Vadim, he’d be gone tomorrow morning to Lexington to search for his…whatever Dutch was to him.

Best friend. Lover. Boyfriend?

_“I’m kinda with someone. I think.”_

_“You think? Don’t you know?”_

The memory of John’s husky voice made things in Shawn’s groin tighten.

He turned over towards the wall, punched the pillow under his head, and closed his eyes, determined to get some sleep. He had to be up early in the morning to help Moe and then head off to run Vadim's errand for him, and over-thinking things with John McDonough and the chance he’d passed up for something that wasn't even certain with Dutch was def-o not going to give him the peace he needed for some good shuteye.

 

* * *

 

In between working for Moe, running scavver missions into the ruins to make some extra caps, and doing Vadim's merc work, a month went by. Shawn waited for word from Dutch, but there had been no letters, no messages. Every day he asked around, but no one had seen his best friend, not even passing traders.

With the worry he felt rolling from a soft boil into a full-blown panic over those long, four weeks, he finally hit a point where he either had to do something or give into the despair. As he had no intention of going the same route McGraw had once gone to numb his feelings, he determined to take matters in hand.

He approached Moe first thing that morning and explained the situation: he was going out to look for Dutch. The guy took Shawn’s decision to leave well, even offered to forward his portion of any profits to the city office up in the stands to pay for McGraw's water ration and the rent on Shawn's shanty while he was gone, so McDonough wouldn't try to sell it out from under him to someone else. The new mayor was proving to be as much as weasel as pre-war politicians had been.

“Thanks, Moe,” he said, holding out his hand. "Really appreciate it."

“Hey, ya helped me with my dream of owning a shop dedicated to baseball, so I figure I owe ya,” Moe said, clasping his palm to Shawn’s and shaking it hard. “You come back anytime. It’s your place, too.”

He then headed for the Dugout Inn and told Vadim his plan to head to Lexington to look for clues of Dutch’s whereabouts.

“Da, is good idea this,” the man agreed. “You want take McGraw with you?”

McGraw had been working out well as Vadim’s bouncer since he’d taken the work, and the man had been packing on the pounds since he’d kicked the chem addiction and started eating Scarlett’s recipes from the Inn’s kitchen on the down-low. He was beginning to look normal, like he could actually fit into his leathers now.

“I no mind,” the Russian said. “He has nearly paid back debt already in trouble he has saved me.”

Shawn considered it, but then he saw the way McGraw eyed Scarlett from across the room, and changed his mind. “Naw, but thanks. I’ll move faster on my own. 'Sides, guy eats more in one sitting than I do in a week. We'd run out of food in two days.”

The boss laughed and reached under the bar, passing a beer off to Shawn. “Then, take this for the road.” Reaching into his pocket, he tried to pay Vadim for the kindness, but the man once more waved him off. “Is on the house, free.”

Thanking him, Shawn took a seat on one of the sofas, wanting to relax for a few before getting a move on. There was a bald guy in jeans and a white tee sitting across from him, reading the paper. He was wearing dark sunglasses, which Shawn thought odd, since they were inside a dimly lit room to start. Losing all your hair was sometimes the first sign of ghoulism, though, so that might explain the smooth skull. The glasses…maybe the guy was covering up the fact that his blood vessels were blown, and his eyes were turning already? The rate of decay from radiation sickness was different for everyone, or so Shawn had discovered.

Either way, the guy's fashion or medical condition wasn't any of his biz.

Besides, he was more interested in what was in the man's hands at the moment.

“Hey, what’s the date on that paper?” he asked the stranger, hoping Piper had finally gotten her newspaper press up and running. She'd had Shawn clean up and haul the heavy-as-fuck 'spirit duplicator', a kind of hand-cranked copying machine, down from the Press Box in the upper stands weeks ago, and had been tinkering with it ever since, determined to make it work again. Although he totally admired her stubborn dedication to her dream of restarting the media, it had cost him a sore back the next day. She still owed him a massage for all that heavy labor, too. “Wouldn’t happened to be today’s, would it?”

The guy flipped the edge of the paper down and looked at Shawn over the top of his sunglasses. Piercing baby blues stared into the heart of him. “What’s that, buddy?”

“I heard Publick Occurrences was supposed to start running any day,” he explained, feeling self-conscious under that direct gaze. “The city’s first newspaper.”

Enlightenment flicked through the stranger’s eyes. “Uh, no. This is pre-war.” He folded it up and held it out for Shawn to take. “Here, I'm done with it, and it looks like you have more of a need for it than me.” The look in the stranger’s eye compelled Shawn to take the paper and not to ask too many more questions. When it passed to his hand, the guy stood up. “See ya around, pal.”

With that, baldie left the Inn without a backward glance.

Weird.

Curious, Shawn opened the paper, seeing nothing of import about it, except that it was dated October 22, 2077 - the day before the worst day of Shawn’s life. Then, on page four, under the SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY column, he noted the top article had been circled in blue ink: _Commonwealth Institute of Technology Perfects Next Generation A.I._ As Shawn read on, he was surprised to find out that C.I.T. had not just been one of the country's top universities, but also apparently a defense contractor to the U.S. government, working on developing advanced robotic technology for military application. Dubbed 'the super soldier program' by the journalist writing the article, it seemed they'd gone beyond even RobCo's work in the area of artificial intelligence and had just successfully field tested their first humanoid-looking androids for the brass the day before...two days before the world had been blown to hell by the Chinese.

Advanced robotic technology that claimed to be smarter and faster than anything else on the planet, and that looked human.

Synths.

Shawn said back against the sofa's cushions and felt the pieces to that bizarre puzzle start to fall into place. The article had state the synths, or 'androids' as they were called back then, were to be 'super soldiers' for the U.S. military. Made sense. People had been upset at the casualties and the resources being used to keep our troops in the field since the Chinese had attacked Anchorage. If the government built robotic soldiers to replace humans in the field, though, they'd be sparing human life, using up less food and water resources. Sure, it would eat into metals and plastics, but people could live without those, and they could recycle. It was the food shortages that had been making people testy there at the end, just before the bombs fell; Shawn remembered that part well, standing in line for rations. Robotic soldiers would have taken some of that burden away, calmed people down.

And the androids would have been the perfect soldiers, too: they would have been programmable to run any sort of combat simulation with perfect accuracy, wouldn't require rest or first aid, wouldn't be so concerned for the welfare of fellow androids that they would cease combat to save them, and wouldn't flinch in the face of suicide missions. They'd be the perfect throw-away, assembly line army...just like in The Unstoppables issue number one with Dr. Brainwash and his De-Capitalists robots.

They'd be formidable, perhaps even unbeatable by the Chinese military.

Was that why China had launched their nukes just two days after the android's successful field test? Had their spies gotten wind of this new technology about to be dispatched, seen how the androids could turn the tide of battle in America's favor, and decided 'fuck it, we're gonna lose anyway' and so caused nuclear Armageddon?

Shit. What if?

But the mystery didn't end there. Oh, no. Seemed the Institute must have found C.I.T.'s research and decided to continue it now, present day, and they were replacing live humans with synths, according to Myrna and others in town. But for what purpose? The war was long over. Everyone had lost.  

More importantly, had 'baldie' purposefully given Shawn this paper for him to read that article or had it been simply coincidence and kindness that had made him offer it over to a complete stranger?

Some instinct told Shawn it hadn't been an accidental move at all, but the reason for it eluded him.

He finished off his beer and stood, folding the paper up and shoving it under his arm. Regardless of the multitude of questions he had about the synths, the Institute, and the bald man, he decided he’d keep this particular issue, if only for toilet reading later at home. He once again thanked Vadim for everything, passing the guy the bottle back so he could wash and recycle it, and headed for the door. On the way past McGraw, who was standing sentinel at the exit, he explained that he was leaving to look for Dutch, that the rent was taken care of for the foreseeable future, and that he should see Moe for any issues.

“I can’t say thanks enough for the second chance,” McGraw said, shaking his hand and then drawing Shawn in for a quick, manly hug. “You saved my life, kid. I’ll never forget that.”

Shawn knew McGraw was saying good-bye just in case. The wasteland was unpredictable and dangerous, and there was always a real chance there would be no coming back once a person stepped outside the Great Green Jewel’s walls. “No thanks necessary. Just do a good turn for someone else when you get the chance. And...I hope to see you again,” he told the Brotherhood soldier with all sincerity. In the month they’d been living together, he’d come to view McGraw as a good friend. The man was respectful, sincere, and honest. He’d fallen from grace, been disillusioned with life, but he was crawling his way back to the light. Maybe he’d even find comfort with Scarlett, if he could work up the nerve someday. “Take care of yourself."

“You, too.”

He went home, packed up, assured his armor and weapons were in working order and that he had enough med-chems, food, water, and ammo to last him for at least a week. He could scrounge out in the ruins if things went on longer than that, he figured. Then, he grabbed his things and headed out to say good-bye to Piper and Nat, too.

Piper didn’t take his decision to leave as well as he'd hoped. She threw herself into his arms and hugged him as if it was the end of the world, just like that song she liked to listen to whenever it came on the radio. “You duck and run through Lexington, S. Be careful of the Raiders they say have taken up out there." She sounded choked up, sniffled as if she was barely holding back tears. "And you have to come back, okay? Soon. I mean, who else gets my jokes?”

“Aww, you saying you’ll miss me?” he teased, tugging on a strand of her short, dark hair and trying to lighten the mood. Christ, it wasn't as if he was going to be gone years, only a few weeks, at the most.

She sighed and then pulled away, punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Every damned day, Vaultie.”

Shawn looked into her pretty, freckled face and tried to reassure her. “I’ll be fine.” He tweaked her nose, just to rile her up. “’Sides, I’m not the one who needs to keep their head down, P. You keep your nose clean while I’m gone. Don’t piss off the mayor.”

She had the audacity to laugh in his face. “Yeah, I’ll be sure not to do that.”

Knowing he wasn’t budging the stubborn bint, for Piper _would_ get her stories, no matter what he cautioned, he gave in and glanced over to the area that Nat had claimed was her bedroom. “Going now, squirt," he called out to her. "You be good for your big sis, yeah?”

“I’m _always_ good,” Nat called back somewhat distracted, and he heard the sound of a magazine page flipping. “Just don’t get your face shot off out there. You’ll lose your title as ‘Hunkiest Cat in Diamond City’.”

He chuckled. That girl was going to be big trouble for some man, someday.

Piper walked him to the city gates, hugged him again, wished him luck.

He didn’t say ‘good-bye’ to her. Instead he said, “see ya soon.”

As he turned to leave, he noted 'baldie' was leaning up against the nearby wall, as if bored and passing the time by standing in the doorway and watching passing traffic. Shawn nodded to him as he walked off, just to let him know he’d been spotted and not to try anything funny. Guy seemed nonchalant about it, though. He simply nodded back.

Still, even as he turned right and headed down the street, Shawn could swear he felt the stranger’s eyes on his back the whole time.


	9. Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember: Shawn's trip through the 'Wealth happens years before the Sole Survivor shows up, so although the locations will be the same, some of the details will be altered to assume for the natural ebb and flow of life (for example: Ferals will wander in and out of places, Radroaches may take up a spot now that later they don't, Raiders might just be settling into a place or taking it over for the first time, etc.). I won't deviate much from game canon, but I am trying to keep within this universe's lore.

* * *

 

Lexington had been a bust.

He’d spent five days combing the entire city, top to bottom, to no avail. There had been no signs that Dutch had even been there, as far as Shawn could tell. He’d even risked mapping the Corvega plant, which had a new Raider gang sniffing around it, looking to set up shop, but had seen no Railsign or any of Dutch’s own marks on the walls. His friend had gotten into the habit of making chalk marks in specific patterns that only Shawn and he understood. That way, they could find each other if separated.

No luck.

There were, however, a whole lot of feral ghouls and Raiders around the ghost town, enough to give a man the case of the paranoids over every little sound. His last day there, in fact, the two groups simultaneously—but acting separately, of course—duked it out with a wandering Behemoth. As gun fire had roared and ferals screamed, Shawn had used the distraction to sneak around them to do a supply run on the Super Duper Mart.

Once inside the old grocery store, he’d moved slowly and as quiet as a mouse, sensing the place had repopulated its vermin since he’d been through there on his second day in town. With a couple of head shots, he took down two ferals while they were laid out on the floor, presumably resting, and a stab here and there later with his combat knife, a few Radroaches clinging to the walls had fallen to the ground, lifeless. When the place was clear, from the floor freezers he snagged a stash of food for the trip home to Diamond City. He left the cases of Nuka colas behind, though, as they were much too heavy and the glass clinked together as he moved, giving away his position, and instead grabbed some purified water in small plastic bottles. He also raided the cigarette machine near the small office up front, snagging twenty full packs. Those would net him some good caps back in Diamond City and they were practically weightless. Loading up his satchel, he headed back out onto the street, again dodged the battle waging in the city square, and took off down the road, heading south.

As he came up to a one-story building with a rickety fence and pink flamingos in the front yard, he decided to see if it would be safe to hold up for the night, as the sun was starting to head in that direction and he didn’t want to be caught out on the roads at night.

A rusted wheelchair parked outside the front door told him this had probably once been either a clinic or an old folk’s retirement home. Inside, he found most of the roof missing, and a long front desk that told him he’d bingo’d the place correctly as being a business and not a residence. An old Nuka Cola machine was empty of product against the far wall, but to his surprise, he found his first clue that Dutch had made it this far: his mark was on the side of the machine in chalk!

Shawn traced over the “DM-SJ” Dutch had written, trying to decipher it. “DM” was Dutchman, he knew, but the “SJ”… He was stumped.  

Exploring the rest of the place netted him zilch in the way of further clues. He did find a small, cramped bedroom with an intact bed and window just as the sun was setting, and grabbing a large plank of wood from nearby, he closed himself in with it, placing it over the open doorway. Anyone looking at it from the outside might think its roof caved in and blocked the space entirely, thus giving him the perfect cover.

Exhausted after a day of tense sneaking and exploring, Shawn lay his weary head down on the smelly, old mattress and slept with his clothes on and a gun near his hand.

The next morning, he awoke to rain drops leaking through the decaying roof, splashing onto his cheek. It startled him into full consciousness, but he remained still to listen for any other sounds in the area. There were gunshots off in the distance, but other than that, there was only the wind. There didn’t seem to be anyone else nearby. Moving carefully, he got up, reached into his pack to grab a Fancy Lads Snack Cake for breakfast and downed a bottle of water. Then, he moved the wooden plank and slowly stepped out, gun at the ready.

No one else had gotten in during the night, thankfully.

Making his way down the hall, he came to the bathrooms, walls and mirrors knocked out but ceramics still intact. He stopped to take a leak in the grimy toilet, but as there was no water in the tank, he didn’t bother flushing.

Shouldering his backpack, rechecking his gun, he went back into the lobby to look for any other possible signs from Dutch. Not finding any, he walked the property, seeking the same.

Nothing.

Dutch had left him only the one signal. But what did it mean? Who or what was “SJ”? Was it a thing, a location…another person’s initials?

One thing was certain: he couldn’t stand outside in the rain and wonder, and that gun fire sounded like it was coming closer. He headed away from it, away from the city, back out onto the road.

In the distance, several Ferals screamed, as if sensing their prey was leaving them behind.

 

* * *

 

“Come on, Myrna, those are in pristine condition,” he argued, as the woman offered him eight caps a pack for the cigarettes he’d scavenged from Lexington. “They’re worth at least double that.” He sidled up to her, flashed his most charming smile. “How’s twelve sound, at least. Win-win.”

Myrna glared at him through narrowed eyes and pursed her lips together. “Fine. This time.”

They both knew she could easily sell those for twenty a pack, given their excellent condition.

“But I want all twenty packs. You’re not selling any to Arturo,” she negotiated. Clearly, the woman wanted to corner the market on smokes, since her neighbor had done so on ammo and mods for weapons and armor. “Take it or leave it.”

“Done,” he said with a grin, and handed over the merchandise.

Myrna counted out every cap before passing them to him, the stingy witch.

“Always a pleasure, m’lady,” he said with a ridiculously flirtatious bow. Myrna was hard to win over, as she was all business and had no time for bullshit, but he’d found her softening to him over the time he’d been here. The sappy routine sometimes even made her mouth twitch with what was _almost_ a smile. “See you again.”

She rolled her eyes and continued her hawking, trying to lure in new customers from the lunchtime crowd that passed through the market area.

Having made his rounds from Piper’s to Vadim’s to Moe’s already, he headed to his small, metal house, now that his errands were done. He needed the toilet, a shower, and some serious sleep, in that order.

At some point during the night, McGraw came in, turned on a light. He rustled around, took a piss, and brushed his teeth. Then, Shawn heard the guy’s mattress springs give way as he laid down and got some sleep.

The next morning, McGraw nudged him awake.

“Going to work now.”

It took Shawn a serious minute to focus on the guy. He felt like someone had hit him over the head one too many times with a Super Sledge. “What?”

“There’re some donuts on the table, if you want them. Scarlett made them yesterday,” his friend said, adjusting the straps on his leather armor. “Got an old Slocum Joe’s recipe and some donut mix from a passing trader and she went right at it. They weren’t half bad. FYI: Pumpkin Spice is the best of the lot.”

“Uh, thanks.” The thought of eating had Shawn’s stomach going into rumble-grumble mode, and suddenly he was starved despite his exhaustion. Besides, free food was not something to pass up, ever. “Coffee?”

“On the stove. Enough for a cup.”

“Thanks, man. I’m nominating you for Roomie of the Year award.”

McGraw snorted and headed for the door. “Later.”

“See ya.”

When the door shut, Shawn forced his body into an upright position, and then he put his feet on the cold, bare floor and stood. He wobbled a bit as he headed into the small, attached kitchen area and threw himself down on a cheap, metal chair next to the table with the box of donuts sitting on it. Throwing open the violent pink cardboard top, he sighed in longing at the sight of six donuts nestled inside. The smell of such sugary temptation brought back memories of his life before the war, when his mom would sometimes bring home left over donuts from the hospital where she’d worked.

He grabbed what looked like the Pumpkin Spice, but instead it turned out to be a regular glazed donut. It was, as McGraw had stated, a bit stiff, but it was still the most delicious thing he’d eaten since before entering the vault two-hundred years ago.

He finished off three more and a mug of black, watery coffee before sitting back and enjoying the afterglow.

Man, he’d loved donuts as a kid. Missed the fuck out of them now. They’d been a rare treat back when he’d been a greedy ten-year old with a hyperactivity problem, like peppermint ice cream and Atomic Fireballs. Plenty of Nuka Cola in the house always, but in general, desserts had been special, usually reserved for birthdays or holidays.

Just like now, if one was really lucky.

And no, Fancy Lads Snack Cakes didn’t count. They were more like cardboard, no real flavor to them, just a sugar high of calories.

He flipped the box top down to keep the remaining two donuts from getting dust on them, and noted the old Slocum Joe’s logo on the box top. He traced it with his finger.

Slocum Joe’s.

S.J.

The moment he understood the importance of those initials, it was like taking a hammer between the eyes. The dots suddenly connected, and the lines made letters he could finally read.

There was a Slocum Joe’s in Lexington.

But…he’d gone inside it, seen nothing to indicate Dutch might have gone there. The diner had been as others he’d crossed in his time in the new ‘Wealth: run-down and filled with relics of the past that others had deemed mostly unimportant or too much bother to scrap. There had been rat skeletons the size of house cats in one corner, dirt everywhere, but it had been clear others had been through there often enough, by the fact the dust on the floor had been disturbed enough to leave tracks where they’d walked.

Maybe he’d missed something. He’d been tired that day, having dodged ferals and then held them off inside the old café, shooting at them through the broken out windows. What if Dutch’s next clue had been there, waiting for him, but he’d overlooked it?

He had to go back out.

True, he was exhausted as shit and he’d only just returned home, but the thought of Dutch lying somewhere, bleeding out…or worse, it gnawed at him like an illness he couldn’t shake. Even if he was dead, Shawn had to know. The _not knowing_ was tormenting him.

He did his morning routine, packed up for another go out in the ruins, and dragged his armor and guns out to the public work benches in the square to buff them and fix them up. He used some of the precious caps Myrna had given him in trade for the ciggies to buy more ammo from Arturo, and then he made the rounds back out, letting everyone know where he was going and why.

“If you hear from or see Dutch, please tell him to wait at home for me,” he asked of Moe, Piper, Vadim, McGraw…anyone who would listen, really. They all agreed, seeing the desperation in his eyes and hearing the worry in his tone.

By mid-afternoon, he was leaving Boston behind again, this time determined to either find Dutch or die trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Slocum Joe's quest in Creation Club comes highly recommended by me. There are new power armor skins, new crafting stations for food and beverages that do some amazing things, a new food counter/store, new building materials and decorations for settlements, and new clothing options that give bonuses and can be modded with Ballistic Weave. It's super easy to do the quest and can offer you some new ways to play the game (for example: the donuts and coffee can be sold for good caps if you don't want to use them and they're light enough to carry around, thus eliminating the need to grind constantly for heavy scavenged goods. Also, setting up a Slocum Joe's restaurant in a settlement makes settlers happy). Here's info. about it: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Slocum%27s_Joe_(quest). Have fun!


	10. So Close, So Far Away - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit smut ahead (in this case, it's slash)! This is the only warning you're going to get in regards to the sex topic for this story, as it's in the tags already. 
> 
> Also, I had to break this chapter up into multiple parts, because it's really long.

* * *

 

The basement of Slocum Joe’s was where he found the clue he’d been looking for. One of the bookshelves was a trick; it pulled away from the wall to reveal an elevator behind it. Unfortunately, the thing wouldn’t open from this side for him, as the power was down. Convinced it was where Dutch had gone, he was determined to get the bloody thing open, no matter the cost.

Problem was, he had nothing but his knife to wedge into the thin opening, but he knew without trying he’d break it once he applied pressure. The blade wasn’t that sturdy. A glance around told him there was nothing in the vicinity that could help either.

He considered the problem, recalled seeing a pry bar at the Red Rocket nearby the last time he’d been through the town. Recovering it took precious minutes, and by the time he returned, it was nightfall.

Ferals came out in bigger packs during these hours, so he hurried back into the basement, turned its rusty, old lock, and secured the door with a box he dragged up from below to block the entrance, just in case. Between those precautions and the stairs, he thought it was a relatively safe place to hole up for the night, if he couldn’t get through the elevator doors.

Using the pry bar, he managed to separate the doors, and he used it as a wedge to keep them open. The elevator wasn’t on this level; it was several floors below. He could see its shiny, white top reflecting in his PipBoy light from where he stood. As he looked around the shaft, he noted there were no escape ladders or rungs built into the concrete, so he had no way to get down, except by the chain, which looked too greasy to risk. Besides, there didn’t seem to be a hatch from the elevator top into the actual car, as far as he could tell from this distance. The thing was a literal death trap if something went wrong in there.

His frustration boiled over, nearly blowing off the top of his damn skull. Fuck, he’d been so close!

It seemed the only way safely down was to find the power source and get it started, so he could call the car up to his level and then ride it down. But he wouldn’t be doing that anytime tonight. Lexington was crawling with monsters, of both the human and non-human kind, and this location was a good spot to lie low and get some sleep.

He pulled the pry bar out and after hefting it, decided it would make a great hand-to-hand weapon, so he stashed it with his things. As the elevator doors slammed back together and the bookshelf closed, Shawn considered the best spot to sleep. After spotting the skeleton under the stairs, he took up the small aisle between the two counter sections instead. It was as good a place as any to rest his weary head.

 

* * *

 

The humming and vibrating floor woke him immediately.

It was coming from the elevator behind the shelf.

Quickly, Shawn took up a spot behind the end of one of the counters and aimed his gun at the spot. He breathed out, lining up his shot, just as he’d been taught and kept a light finger on the trigger.

The bookshelf swung open, the sound of elevator doors doing the same followed.

Dutch stepped out of the lighted lift, looked around. His blond hair practically glowed in the small wedge of light.

Shawn scrambled to his feet. “Dutch?”

His best friend glanced at him, but didn’t seem surprised to see him, which was odd.

“Knew you’d come,” the guy said. “You’re stubborn like that.”

His feet moved before he was even aware of giving the command. One minute Shawn was across the room, the next, his gun was on the counter and his arms were around Dutch, and they were hugging as if the world was coming to an end.

Shawn’s mind was abuzz with questions, confused by the way Dutch seemed stiff in his embrace and the awkward patting he was giving him on the shoulder and back. When his friend pulled away quickly, it left Shawn reeling…

And then a female stepped out from behind Dutch, a beauty with silvery-white hair that was cut Raider style—shaved on one side, the rest left long, floppy. Her dark eyes took him in with a sweeping glance and glittered with suspicion, and her full, darkly painted lips pursed, as if she was refraining from commenting, despite badly wanting to do so. She was short, but there was something about her that spoke of a hidden power and strength, and Shawn knew she was not one to tango with lightly.

He also knew by the way she shot Dutch a look that the two of them were somehow together in some fashion. Were they partners? Lovers?

Shawn’s guts burned hot and writhed around with the unfamiliar pull of jealousy.

“Shawn, this is Glory,” Dutch introduced them, putting his hand on the woman’s shoulder in a friendly gesture. Partners then…but it was clear by the way they stood that they both wanted more. “Glory, this is Shawn.”

The woman didn’t hold out her hand to shake. Instead, she crossed her arms and stared up at Shawn with defiance. “Before we get all cozy, answer me this, big guy: what do you think of synths? They the enemy everyone calls them, or something else?”

Thinking back on his talk with McGraw back in Good Neighbor, about that poor guy Harkness, and how the synths had gotten their start as throw-away tinker toys for the military according to that newspaper the bald guy had given him at the Dugout Inn, Shawn already knew the answer to this one—at least, the answer according to _his_ code. “They’re alive. Like you and me and Dutch.” He looked over at his best friend, noting that familiar jaw, those pretty blue eyes, remembering the taste of that mouth… He clenched his jaw and jumped off the ledge, taking the chance. “And the Institute sucks for what they’re doing to ‘em, and to the people they kidnap. It’s wrong.”

“See?” Dutch said, turning to his companion. “I told you. Heart of gold.”

Glory’s expression shifted, the mistrust gone from her eyes, but she was still a little wary. Shawn suspected it was her natural default. “He’s your responsibility, babe. Do what you gotta.”

The pet name set Shawn’s back teeth on edge.

She turned to go back into the elevator. “I’ll leave you two to discuss things.”

With that, she hit a button inside the car, the doors closed, and the lift descended. The light in the room disappeared, but Shawn wasn’t quick to use his PipBoy to fix that problem. Instead, he stood in the dark with Dutch, finding it was easier to ask his questions this way.

“Why didn’t you come home?”

He heard the click of the bookshelf being returned to its proper position, but it was as black as a night in the forest without a moon in the sky and so he couldn’t see where Dutch was, exactly. He guessed the guy was leaning against the thing, waiting for Shawn to turn on the light.

He decided to leave it alone for now. It was easier to say what he wanted to say when he didn’t have to look at the guy.

“I waited for you,” he admitted, sounding small and ridiculous. “Every day I looked for you around town. Every night, I’d stay awake for as long as I could, hoping you’d come home. After four weeks, I started looking for your body in the ruins, terrified I’d actually find it. Where were you, Dutch? Why didn’t you send word?”

His best friend remained silent.

Shawn’s ire went from zero to ninety in three seconds flat. He was the first to admit he had a bad temper, and this whole situation had just lit his fuse like a firecracker ready to go ‘BOOM!’. “Two _fucking_ months I waited and prayed!” he snarled, his fists clenched at his sides. He had to keep his hands down or he was afraid he’d start swinging and he wouldn’t care what he hit in the darkness. “You own me an explanation, you bastard!”

Dutch gave a heavy sigh. “Shawn…”

“You weren’t coming back, were you?”

There was a pause before Dutch admitted, “No. I wasn’t.”

Shawn felt like he’d just been punched in the chest. All the air left him at once.

“Jesus.”

He was dangerously close to tears. Thank god it was pitch black all around.

“What the hell, Dutch? I thought-” His voice broke and he sniffed, trying not to sound like a pansy-ass. “Were we even friends, or did you just feel sorry for the virgin Vaultie freak?”

Dutch hissed.

“No, god, Shawn… It wasn’t… _Damn it!”_

Cloth rustled, he heard movement, felt the disturbance of air nearby. The next thing he knew, rough hands clamped onto his face, pulled him down.

Dutch’s mouth was warm as it claimed his, and his tongue tasted of Nuka Cherry, his favorite morning pick-me-up.

Head spinning and heart aching at finding himself back in Dutch’s arms so unexpectedly, with the unquestionable proof that his best friend wanted him pressing with hard insistence up against Shawn’s lower abdomen right then, Shawn could do nothing more than respond to the needs raging through him. He grabbed hold of his best friend in the dark and turned that shit around, plundering Dutch’s mouth as if he had a right to it, as if he _owned_ it. He ground his hips against the solid bulge he could feel behind Dutch’s jeans, rubbed them together until he felt raw with the need to get inside him.

Their hands were everywhere on each other, shoving past leather armor, moving it out of the way, unzipping clothes to get to the skin underneath. Shawn’s hips jerked as Dutch got the front of his jeans opened and reached down between them to cup him.

“Oh god, touch me,” he groaned, nipping, licking at the lips he’d fantasized about since the first moment they’d met.

He couldn’t breathe past the want, wished he could see what was happening…

In a quick, well-practiced move, he opened the PipBoy’s latch, took it off his arm, and set the thing onto the counter behind him. Then he reached behind Dutch and grabbed his ass, pulling him forward until the guy was riding his thigh.

“You left,” he accused his friend, emphasizing his displeasure by nipping Dutch’s throat. His lover moaned in his ear and stretched to give Shawn better access. “You left me behind.” The hurt in his chest was easing the more they touched, but still… Shawn’s muscles bunched, tensed as he pulled Dutch in, rolled his hips, mimicking what he really wanted to be doing with him right then. “But, I chased you down, Dutchman. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Dutch’s hands tangled in his hair, pulled at him. His breath was a hot blast against Shawn’s throat as he frotted against him. “God, I missed you.” The confession came on a breathy whisper as his friend suddenly pushed away and dropped to his knees. He tore at Shawn’s pants, yanking them down his legs and his cock sprang free, fully hard and weeping. Calloused hands ran up his thighs, gripping them tight. “You don’t know how much…”

When Dutch’s lips parted and wrapped around him, Shawn was unable to stop his hips from thrusting. He sank into the warm cavern of his friend’s mouth, and felt a wicked tongue stroke against the sensitive underside of his cock.

“Fucking hell,” he swore, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Swollen, aching to release while buried deep in Dutch’s throat, Shawn cut loose. He fucked his friend’s mouth with all of the need, anger, and frustration he felt. Somewhere in the back of his Neanderthal head, he worried he was hurting his lover, but the more rational part of his mind knew if he was, Dutch would stop him. He wouldn’t let himself be abused like that, not even to make amends.

“I’m gonna come so fucking hard,” he warned, release boiling to the surface, a rush that wouldn’t be denied. “I’m gonna fill your mouth, and you’re gonna take it all.”

Another thrust, Dutch sucked hard, his nose meeting Shawn’s lower belly. A hand smoothed up his thigh, cupped his balls, caressed them…

That threw him over the edge. Shawn roared as he released. His spine bent back, ass flexing as his hips continued the in and out thing. Spurts of hot seed shot out of him to fill Dutch’s mouth, again and again. The high seemed never ending as he trembled through his body’s orgasm. “Swallow it,” he growled when he could finally think and talk again, as the last shudder racked him from head to toe.

He could feel Dutch’s throat convulse, knew the guy had taken into his belly all Shawn had to give and was probably licking those gorgeous lips for more.

Legs quaking from such an earth-shattering release, Shawn’s strength abruptly left him and he went limp, slumping to his knees. Quickly, he tucked himself back in, but it took a bit of fumbling as his hands refused to get with the program.

Dutch was quiet and still before him, just as he’d been at the start of all of this.

Something was wrong.

“What is it?” he finally dared to ask, unnerved by the silence.

Dutch’s hand hit his chest, worked its way up to cup his cheek, finding by touch what was not possible with sight. “Shawn…I can’t go back.”

It took Shawn a minute to put that sentence together in a way that made sense to his post-coital brain. “Why the hell not?”

Dutch sighed. “Because I found them."

"'Them'?" he asked, beginning to wonder if he was playing a game of 'Celebrity-Who Am I?', only without the charades crowd or shots of whiskey lined up. "Wanna clue me in? Who did you find exactly?"

"I found the Railroad.”

 


	11. So Close, So Far Away - Part 2

* * *

 

_"I found the Railroad.”_

“That’s great,” Shawn stammered, confused by Dutch’s deflection. “What’s that got to do with you not coming back home, though?”

His friend leaned forward, and suddenly his head was resting on Shawn’s shoulder, even as he kept his body apart from him. “I pledged myself to their cause. They’re going to try to help me find my sister.”

“Okay, so you joined up. I expected you would if you ever did get this far.”

He was trying to be understanding, really, but he could hear the tremor in his voice, knew it was fear. Some instinct told him that what had just gone down here wasn’t about reconnecting, but about saying good-bye.

“One of their conditions was giving up your old life. A clean cut.”

Shawn frowned, feeling his happy glow beginning to sour. “Alright, if you can’t come home, then I’ll join you.”

“No, you… You can’t be a part of this. I’m sorry.”

“What?” Anger began gathering at the edges again. It leaked into his voice. “Why the fuck not?”

Dutch moved away, and Shawn felt that space where he’d been replaced with a chill that had nothing to do with the temp in the room. “I found the code that released you from the vault. Someone _had_ used the old Galaxy News Radio tower to bounce the signal to reach you, just like you’d thought. The Railroad kept the records and moved them over to their new headquarters when they abandoned the tower. I went through them and with help, deciphered the code.”

“So who sent the signal and why, and what’s any of it got to do with why we can’t be together?”

“Don’t know the ‘why’ part, but the ‘who’… Shawn, it was the Institute that let you out of Vault 111.”

That chill ran like ice through him, creeping up his spine. “How do you know that? You can’t-” He paused, thought back to the day he was un-thawed. The terminal he’d futzed with had said something about an authorization for his release. What was it again? He wracked his brain until he remembered. “Shit. The override code had the word ‘Institute’ in it, didn’t it? I remember that.”

“The authorization code for the override was ‘Institute.Patriot.000ab2ec’. I memorized it, because I’ve been researching it for the last six weeks,” Dutch explained. “It was an encrypted code, but Tink- er, someone in the group broke the code for me. Seems an Institute scientist, some kind of cyber security expert who’s calling himself ‘Patriot’, tricked the Vault Overseer’s primary program into letting you go. No one knows why, and the Railroad…they don’t trust you because of it.”

Shawn scoffed. Him, an Institute stooge? No fucking way. He told as much to Dutch.

His friend’s hand landed gently on his arm. “I know it, but I can’t convince the others. They’re… Shawn, you have to understand that the Railroad helps synths escape enslavement and they find people the Institute has taken. They’re Public Enemy Number One on the Institute’s hit list. They have to be extra cautious.” His hand slid up, cupping Shawn’s cheek again. “Do you know what I had to do to convince them not to kill you the second you stepped into Slocum Joe’s?”

The warning in Dutch’s voice had Shawn breaking out in goosebumps. "How'd they even know me on sight?"

"They've had someone tailing you for a while, watching you. He's ace at covert ops. You probably didn't even notice him."

"Would he have killed me?"

"If he'd thought you a credible threat, probably. You wouldn't have seen it coming, either. For all his joking and shenanigans, he's actually really good at his job."

The thought of having his throat slit in his sleep...

Jeezus, had he really been that close to getting his nuts chopped off?

Dutch's hand slid into his hair, playing with its ends, which had begun to curl as it had grown out. "I was stuck here. Told I couldn't warn you. But I knew... _knew_ you weren't the enemy, that you couldn't possibly be an Institute spy or a replacement synth sent in to infiltrate us."

Shawn stiffened at the thought, having never considered it before. Him, a synth? Not possible.

Right?

"I knew you'd pass their tests, Shawn. You've got a human heart of gold in you, and there's no faking that kind of thing."

Tests?

He thought back to the way Glory had sized him up…

“That woman I met earlier, she would have killed me if I’d answered differently,” he said, more a statement than a question.

“Yes,” Dutch confirmed.

Shawn pulled away from his friend’s touch. “You would have let her?”

“No! Hell, Shawn, what kind of monster do you take me for?”

He thought about it, decided to let his resentment do the talking. “I would have waited for you forever, you know. But you can’t say the same, can you?”

When Dutch remained silent in the face of that awful truth, Shawn knew then that his best friend wasn’t in love with him. Sure, the guy loved him, yeah, even lusted for him, but that wasn’t the same as being _in_ love and there was a world of difference between the two.

The whole thing was too fucking tragic.

He climbed wearily to his feet and felt around for his Pip-Boy, turning it on. He was careful not to look at it directly until his eyes had adjusted, as he’d learned that lesson well over the years. When it was primed and ready, he set it for the return trip home. Thirteen miles. He could be there by tomorrow night, if he left right away and the weather held.

Behind him, Dutch also got to his feet. He loomed behind Shawn, who was hyper-aware of his best friend’s every move, despite not having eyes on him. “Shawn, you need to know: I’ve been assigned to find out who ‘Patriot’ is and why he helped you. It’s _important._ If he’s an ally, we’ll finally have someone on the inside at the Institute. Do you realize what that could mean?”

“Yeah,” Shawn said, trying not to sound too interested as he fiddled meaninglessly with his Pip-Boy, switching between menus. “Means you might be able to find your sister. Congrats.”

Dutch grabbed his arm in a firm hold and yanked him around, forcing Shawn to look at him. In the green light from his Pip-Boy, his friend looked rad-tainted. “Yes, it does! Jenny was a child when she was taken from us. An innocent! Who knows what those bastards did to her! And I’m responsible. I was supposed to be watching her. I was her big brother and I failed her!”

His words were a ton of bricks dropped on Shawn’s head. If anyone could understand the guy’s desperation, it was him, because his babs, Cindy, was still frozen in the Vault, and he couldn’t help her either. Ditto for his parents. But at least he knew where they were, knew they were safe, even if they weren’t awake or aware. It was the _not_ knowing that was clearly driving Dutch spare…just as it had done to him when he’d been worried about his best friend.

He felt like he’d had all the air let out of him as his anger suddenly deflated.

“Okay, I want to help,” he said, even knowing all it would bring him was more heartbreak. It wasn’t in his nature to just walk away, not when Dutch was trying to find answers for him about his mysterious release from the vault, too. The least he could do was return the favor. “I don’t care about the Railroad’s rules. You’re my…my best friend. There’s got to be something I can do.”

Dutch seemed taken aback by the offer at first, but then his lips curled with a kind of fond exasperation that reminded Shawn of when they’d first met. Seemed in those days that his best friend was always looking at him like that, as if Shawn was something the guy hadn’t expected to find in the blasted ruins of civilization, and that he was glad he had. The familiarity of that look had him feeling a bit more at ease.

“You’re really something, you know? I've burned you, but still...you're willing to do the right thing.”

Shawn shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. “So, what do you need me to do?”

When Dutch didn’t reply, he turned to him. “What?”

His best friend stepped into him, closing the gap that had opened up between them…and not just his physical presence. He leaned up and kissed him on the mouth again. Shawn’s body went tight, hoping for a round two before his brain could catch up to remind him of all the reasons that was a bad idea.

“How am I supposed to let you go when you’re like this?” the guy asked, glancing up at him through a gaze heavy with sexual suggestion.

“If it bothers you that much, then don’t do it,” Shawn suggested. "Don't let me go. Problem solved."

"Shit, you're gonna be the death of me, Shawn," Dutch groaned and grabbed the back of Shawn’s head to yank him down until their mouths were mating, their tongues dancing. His friend’s body was still hard, as he’d found no completion earlier. He rubbed his cock against the ridge of Shawn’s jeans, reigniting the need in him in an instant. "How can I resist you?"

“Stop trying to,” Shawn whispered in Dutch’s ear as he made his way down the guy’s throat and latched on to the bend in his neck with his teeth. The guy gasped and gave a small, desperate sounding whine. “Let me in you again. Say 'yes'.”

Dutch’s hands tightened on his hair and he arched into him. “Yes,” he hissed, and that was all the permission Shawn needed.

Reaching behind him on the counter, he found his Pip-Boy…and switched off its light.

 

* * *

 

Dutch was sitting on the floor with his naked back pressed to Shawn’s sweaty chest, breathing hard from the work out he’d just taken. Not that Shawn was in any better shape. His legs felt like jelly and his heart was still pounding in his ears. Thank god he was on the ground.

“You okay?” he asked his friend, knowing he’d been more than a little rough with him.

They’d both gotten carried away, and Shawn was sure Dutch’s hips were going to be bruised from the grip he’d maintained as he’d pounded into him from behind. He was surprised the guy could even sit after that, in fact. 

“Yeah,” Dutch said, sounding logy and pleased. “You?”

Nuzzling his friend’s throat he whispered, “Oh, yeah. I’ve never come so hard in my life.”

“Me, either,” his friend said with a laugh. “You’re getting good at this.”

“I’ve got a good teacher.”

Dutch went silent again.

Shawn nudged him to get him to talk.

“This can’t-” His lover sighed. “Shit, I'm supposed to let you go. They expect it.”

That sinking feeling returned. Shawn gently set Dutch up and off of him, and then climbed to his feet, hating the disappointment that was beginning to swamp the high he’d just been riding. He should have expected it though. Nothing had changed just because they’d fucked like bunnies at the spring dance. It had just been a lull in the stormy sea that was his love life. “Yeah, got it,” he said, finding his jeans in the dark and pulling them back on, zipping up. He then felt around for his shirt, eventually crawling over towards the wall before grabbing it and tossing it over his head. “Just think of it as polishing your knob. That'll make it easier.”

“Come on, it's never been like that,” Dutch replied. "And before you say it, what we just did wasn't a mistake, either."

Shawn replaced each piece of his leather armor by feel alone, having done it a million times before, and tried not to sound hateful when he admitted, “Maybe not for you.” Because this sure as shit _hurt_ , knowing he'd put himself out there again and again for his best friend's consideration, that he'd given it his all and gambled his heart, only to come in second best to a group of strangers with a collective martyr complex. 

Yeah, there had been a whole lot of mistakes made here regardless of what Dutch thought, because at the end of the day, Shawn was going home alone, wasn't he?

“Don’t say that.” He could hear and feel Dutch moving, redressing the same as him. “No regrets, remember? We promised.”

Yeah, he had…back when he’d believed Dutch would be coming back to Diamond City after his most recent jog through the countryside. When he’d thought all of this had actually meant something more to his best friend.

Now he knew better, and he regretted the fuck out of all of it.

His thighs trembled as he stood up again, reaching for the counter, finding his Pip-Boy. He didn’t turn it on yet, though. Again, it was easier to have this discussion without the look-see game to chase off his courage. “Whatever, Dutch. I get it. It was just sex. Moving on.”

His friend’s sigh was a heavy sound in the stillness around them.

“I can’t go back, not if I want to save Jenny.”

“You already said. Noted.”

“But…I could definitely use your help, if that’s still on the table. You’d be helping yourself at the same time, too.”

As if he’d needed that enticement. He’d already made the pledge to do what he could. He didn’t need bribing. He made that clear to Dutch.

“Sorry,” his friend offered, realizing he’d offended him. “I didn’t mean… Damn it, I always bugger things up with you. You have a way of turning me inside out.”

Shawn laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “Welcome to the club.”

Another sigh, this one just as long-winded and filled with self-recrimination.  “Listen, this person who freed you from the vault, I found traces of his signature elsewhere in the Railroad’s records. I know he’s been in contact with other groups, but again, I don’t know why. I only know he’s sent out encoded messages to Vault 118, which were received, but went unanswered. Another was sent somewhere out west, to a place called ‘Nuka World’. They answered him, which was a surprise, because last I'd heard, the place had been crawling with some new raider group who took it over last year. Also, there were a series of reciprocated communication signals up north to a place near Far Harbor, a town we don’t have on our maps. It calls itself ‘Acadia’.”

"Sounds like a busy bee. Surprised your stoolie hasn't been caught yet."

"He's random in his communications. There's no rhyme or reason to when they happen, so it's possible he's only doing it when no one in the Institute is actually watching him. And he still piggybacks his communications off the old Galaxy News tower at a variety of frequency ranges, which is why the Gunners probably haven’t caught onto him yet, either. Seems they’re not _that_ good at communications, according to Tink- Er, one of the Railroad's signal experts. That’s all we know for now.”

Shawn sighed, resigned. "So, you want me to go to the places where he's winging signals and see who's answering him. Yeah, okay. How do I get word to you when I find something?"

Dutch reached around him, turning the Pip-Boy's switch to light it up. 

Quickly, Shawn shut his eyes. "Shit, man!"

Flipping through the RADIO menu, Dutch stopped on one signal that was strong, but only filled with static. "See this frequency right here? It bounces off of the old Trinity Tower radio in Boston. Find a way to broadcast a signal that will reach there, and someone in the Railroad will be listening. They'll get word to me. My code name is 'Bluefox'."

Shawn snorted. "So, do I get a super, secret agent name, too? I mean, I can't go around announcing myself as 'Shawn Cofran, that hunk of burnin' love from Vault 111' now, can I?"

Dutch seemed to find that amusing. "What name do you want to use?"

He thought about it for a moment, considering the comic books from his childhood days for his inspiration. He couldn't use any of the Unstoppables, obviously, because they were legendary heroes, which he most definitely was not. However, the attractive playboy of the group, Manta Man, a blond Princeling of the Oceanic Deep, had a trusty sidekick who frequently launched himself from the shadows to attack enemies, protecting his master with his venomous fangs...

"Viper," he said. "Yeah, that'll work."


	12. Onward and Upward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mariner doesn’t have a first name in game lore, so I gave her one for this story. Also in this part of the story she knows she’s ill with a chronic disease (I’m saying it’s Chronic myelogenous leukemia), but the symptoms aren’t yet showing.
> 
> Old Longfellow doesn't have a first name in game lore, so I gave him one for this story.
> 
> Fire Belly is an actual concoction Mitch from the Last Plank makes. It appears in your inventory as a Stimpak that’s grayish colored, but it’s actually a cocktail. It’s made with 1 Aster, 2 Black bloodleaf, and 1 Vodka at a cooking station once you get the recipe from Mitch. It causes you to have -30 Hit Points + a % of damage to you depending on your HP (anywhere from 10-30% extra damage), has a 25% chance of alcohol addiction, and -1 Agility when injected directly in your bloodstream via needle. In this story, I’m saying it is drunk from a shot glass instead, and so its effects that aren’t quite as catastrophic.
> 
> Keep in mind that during this time (~6 years before the Sole Survivor emerges from the vault), Far Harbor wasn’t yet overrun by the fog (which is what caused everyone on the island to abandon their farms and towns to pull back to the docks of Far Harbor), the Children of the Atom is still being led by Confessor Martin (DiMA’s friend), Acadia has only been in the business of being a synth haven for ~3 years and is still secret, and DiMA hadn’t yet created fog condensers or replaced Captain Avery with a synth (because he hasn't contacted Far Harbor yet). As such, I’ve envisioned what the island would have been like before everyone needed to huddle together and before they became a bunch of paranoid, hostile isolationists.
> 
> Ayuh - Regional slang (Maine) for 'yeah'.

* * *

 

_**Far Harbor, The Island (formerly Mount Desert Island, Maine) – November, 2282** _

 

Shawn woke up groggy and a little hung-over.

“Morning, tiger.”

“Wha-” His mouth felt like it was full of floss and tasted like salty ass. “Where?”

“The Last Plank, your room,” his guest reminded him. As Shelley Mariner came into focus, so too did his memory of her under him, moaning and arching as he thrust into her warm, wet body. “Quite a night we had, snookums. Though I’m betting the row of Fire Belly shots you slammed back are knocking on your skull right about now, ayuh?”

He rubbed his eyes, finding she was right. Damn, but what had Mitch made that shit out of again? Hell of a kick.

A glass of water appeared before him. “Here, drink it down. It’ll help.”

Right then, Shawn didn’t care whether it was purified or dirty water he was swallowing, so long as it cured his parched throat. When he finished with one, he drank a second glass, compliments of Shelley’s kindness.

The girl was seriously a goddess.

“Thanks,” he said as she took the glass away. Planting his feet on the floor, he sat on the edge of the narrow cot he’d been renting out since he’d arrived at Far Harbor almost two months ago, and hung his head on his shoulders. Everything hurt, including his back, which felt like it had been shredded to ribbons.

“Damn, Shells, if anyone’s a tiger here,” he said around a yawn, massaging a tired shoulder and indicating the marks she’d left on him. “You need to clip those claws, kitten, or I’m not shagging you anymore.”

Shelley came and sat next to him on the bed and nudged him with her elbow. “You like the sex too much to cut me off.”

Yeah, he did. Strange how he’d found shaking the sheets with a woman to be just as satisfying as it had been with Dutch. It was definitely different, no question about it, but he’d liked how soft and small Shelley was, how her skin wasn’t rough (even though her mouth was), and he’d loved eating her out and feeling her come all over his mouth. Pussy was awesome.

He hadn’t planned on a friends-with-benefits relationship with anyone, much less with a female, but after Dutch had pretty much made it clear that’s what _they’d_ had, well, all bets had been called off. Distance and time, alcohol and sex—those were the ingredients he was finding helped ease the pain in his chest and were aiding him in slowly getting over his first love.

And his second.

Yep, he still thought about John McDonough, found his mind wandered back to the guy at the most inconvenient moments. He couldn’t even explain the connection there, but…he felt it as keenly as the one he felt for Dutch, even though he didn’t want to, because wanting to be with John had always seemed like a betrayal to what he’d felt for his best friend.

Shelley wasn’t like either of them, thankfully, and not just in looks, but in temperament. She was comfortable with her sexual needs and kinks, unafraid to grab them by the balls and ride ‘em out. She didn’t pretend that what they had was any grand romance, either. To her it was just two bodies coming together to get off some fireworks, which was fine by him, since he thought of it the same.

Besides, he’d heard around that she was already having an on-again, off-again affair with a local roving trader named Allen Lee, who made the rounds of the island hawking his wares with his sister, Sandra. Seemed the guy wouldn’t give up the work to settle down on the docks with Shells, which had Shawn thinking Allen already had a wife tucked away on one of the outlying settlements and only came out this far for a little piece when he had an itch to scratch.

Not that he’d ever voice that suspicion. Shelley would have his balls for dinner.

So, basically, he and his tigress screwed around, shared a little pillow talk and a cigarette after, and nothing too deep passed their lips to ruin the arrangement. And just to be on the safe side, he always pulled out before coming. Getting the girl preggo was a no-no.

But had he done so last night when he’d been three sheets to the wind?

“Hey, um, last night…we were safe, right?” he asked, just to be sure. He felt his cheeks pinking with embarrassment for having to ask. “I mean, I didn’t… _you know_ …in you, did I?”

Shelley gasped, put a hand over her heart and batted her eyelashes at him. “Why, Shawnie boy, are you asking if you finally managed to man-up and bust a nut in my sweet spot at long last?”

He winced at the bad euphemism, and his lover was like a shark sensing blood in the water at that. She continued to tease him mercilessly about it.

“Are you really asking me if you’d spooged me a salty surprise? Serviced the clam with sauce? Gave me a Penis Colada?”

He groaned, realizing he’d made a mistake in letting her know that one of his weaknesses was actually talking about sex. It had taken him until this last summer to actually lose his virginity, and as a bit of a late bloomer, he wasn’t yet comfortable with being so vulgar about the act. During sex was one thing, but after…

Shelley fell back on the bed and laughed until she was purple in the face.

“Babe,” he growled in warning, wanting an honest answer. He was feeling a case of the hot sweats the longer she went without saying. “Quit with the yucking and tell me the truth.”

“Okay, okay!” She sat back up quite suddenly, making his head spin, and slapped a hard hand down on his shoulder. “Well, big boy, it’s true I rode you like you were a Brahmin bull on a stampede and had you whimpering like a whipped dog for more, but don’t worry your little heart over it. I got mine then pulled off and dropped down to swallow. So yes, cutie pie, we’re fine.”

Shawn sighed with relief.

Well, at least she’d been responsible enough for the both of them to ensure he didn’t totally ruin both of their lives.

“And on that note, I gotta get going,” she told him, ruffling his longish hair and hopping up from the bed. “I’m meeting with Avery. She’s concerned about these Children of the Atom freaks muscling in on the dock now that some of them are settling in the town outside. They’re wanting to use one of the smaller buildings at the end of the pier for a house of worship, which makes me nervous, since they’re all about spreading the radioactivity.”

“So you’re going to tell them ‘no’, then? I don’t get the feeling they’ll like that very much,” Shawn said, having had a run-in or two with the Children in the town outside and finding them to be all kinds of pushy and rude the more their numbers grew. Clearly, they didn’t mind using violence as a means to get what they wanted. “Religious wackos can be dangerous, Shells. You’re gonna need backup if you go to talk to them.”

She patted his cheek. “That’s what I’ve got you for, muscles,” she stated with supreme confidence that he’d be there for her. And he would be. No way would she be standing up to the town bullies on her own. “Besides, we’re not meeting with them yet. Avery and I are getting together with a few others to create a committee to decide how best to deal with the situation.” She headed for the door, and was half-way out already when she added, “These docks are my land, though, thanks to Pops dying and leaving them to me, and I’m not inclined to give in to threats, implied or otherwise.”

“Shells!”

She stuck her head back through the door before it closed behind her. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for last night.”

“You remember now?”

“Don’t think I’ll ever forget it again.”

She looked appeased. “Repeat later, if you’re good.”

His dick stood up and wagged happily at the thought as she shut the door behind her.

Shawn leaned back in the bed, riding the buzz of last night’s satisfaction and the possibility of it happening again tonight, and as he palmed his cock, giving it a good stroke, he realized he’d become something of a sex fiend since he’d had his cherry popped by Dutch. The thought of sticking his wick into any attractive man or woman who passed him kept him hard most days, and his fantasies were getting positively filthy as new experiences opened him up to fresh ideas.

Seriously, he hadn’t been this randy since he’d been thirteen!

Stroking his hardening, sensitive length, he closed his eyes and imagined himself in between Dutch and Shelley, his prick deep in her as Dutch pounded him from behind. He bit his bottom lip and cursed as his hand picked up the pace. The scenario shifted, so now he was inside Dutch while John was inside him. He couldn’t decide which he liked better.

In the end, he shot his load all over his belly, imagining he was doing so all over Shelley’s face. He’d covered her cheeks, mouth, and breasts more than once already, so he knew perfectly well how she looked with his come dripping off of her chin and nipples. Knew he liked those memories almost as much as the thought of finishing inside her, of making her and every sexy girl in town swell with his child.

As he lay panting, exhausted, his stomach a sticky mess, he stared at the ceiling and sighed.

Man, he was a nasty bastard deep down inside, wasn’t he?

 

* * *

 

A woman named Cassie Dalton was in town to pick up supplies for her family’s farm and had stopped in for a drink at Mitch’s counter when Shawn finally came down to join the rest of the living and did a little eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Haven’t seen him in weeks,” the woman stated, nursing a beer. “Allen’s never this late. I’m thinking Ferals got him.”

“Not a chance,” Mitch said, sounding pretty sure of that fact. “He’s always loaded for bear, him and that psycho sister of his. Plus, he hires out caravan guards, ex-Gunners from the Commonwealth. Between them, they can take on anything, even a Fog Crawler.” He turned to Longfellow, who was drinking in the corner alone, as usual. “Hey, Frank, what say you? Think Allen’s on the menu for the Ferals today?”

The old hunter snorted. “Not likely. He’s a survivor, that one.”

Mitch turned back to the old woman. “Ya see, Cass, no need to worry. He’s probably just found a new settlement on the edge and added them to the route.”

Shawn approached the bar, sensing the lull the in the conversation. “Hey ya, Mitch. How’s it hangin’?”

“A little to the right, ya know what I'm sayin'?” the guy joked, wiping the counter. He was always doing that, like it was a nervous habit he’d acquired at a younger age, an obsession against dirty on his bar top. “So, what’ll it be today?”

“I, uh… Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear. Has someone gone missing?”

Mitch waved him off. “Nah, it’s nothing. Cassie Dalton here is just worried, because she ain’t seen the guy in two weeks.”

“Three,” Cassie corrected him. “It was a day away from three before I set out to come into town.” She glanced way up at Shawn, measuring him through a calculating eye. “Mainlander, huh? Where from?”

Shawn was used to the people of Far Habor referring to him and other outsiders from the ‘Wealth as such. Everyone foreign was a ‘mainlander’, and they all denounced them as such with the same kind of pity-slash-disdain in their voices, as if they felt badly for anyone who hadn’t been born and raised on their amazing island. The idea always had him grinning, especially considering how bumpkin backwater most of these folks seemed to him.

“Diamond City,” he said, figuring it was less likely anyone here would know where ‘Sanctuary, Massachusetts’ was, and he definitely didn’t want to have to go into the whole lucky vault escapee bit again. That lie was getting old and beginning to grate on him, honestly. “The Great Green Jewel.”

Cassie’s laugh sounded more like wheezing, he thought. “We got ourselves a couple o’ jewels right here,” she said. “Saw one come down from your room earlier, in fact. Shelley’s a special girl.”

His cheeks went hot with embarrassment. “Uh, y-yes, she is,” he stammered, unsure of what to say in the face of Mrs. Dalton’s piercing stare. It wasn’t as if he was going to admit that he and Shells were using each other to work off some excess energy. Clearing his throat, he prodded the original topic. “So, um, does Allen have a regular route he takes around the island? I mean, I’ve got some time on my hands-” Especially as he’d found absolutely no evidence of synths or signal towers anywhere around the town, and now knew he needed to expand his search if he was going to trace ‘Patriot’s’ signal to its destination and find out his contact up here in Maine. “-so I could go out looking for him.”

“Would you be such a darling?” Cassie asked, spinning on her stool to face him full-on. “We on the outskirts of the island depend on his regular runs to get new supplies. Otherwise, we’d have to make the trek into the town ourselves, and there are always dangers on the roads. Not as many as when the fog used to roll and blanket the island, decades ago, but there are still plenty of Ferals that make it over from other islands nearby. They walk across the sandbars at low tide and sneak up on unsuspecting travelers.”

That floored Shawn. He’d never considered Ferals being clever enough to change their shorts, much less to watch tidal movements.

“That happen a lot?”

She nodded. “Ayuh. Every once in a while, John and Andre Michaud clear ‘em from the roads for us.”

Well, that was something he’d have to file away for future reference. “Duly noted,” he told her. “Now, about that route…”

 

* * *

 

By noon, Shawn was geared up and had procured plenty of ammo from Brooks at The Bait Shop, including some nifty Caltrops which would tear-up the enemy’s feet, buying him time when in combat with them. He let Shelley know that their hook-up would have to wait until he got back.

Her teasing demeanor died the moment he explained why he was leaving, to be replaced with clear concern.

“Be careful,” she told him. “And…I’m gonna pray it’s nothing more than a downed Brahmin.”

He nodded, knowing her concern was split, but not holding it against her. It was clear as a bell to him that she had deeper feelings for Allen. He only hoped for her sake that Allen wasn’t playing her the mistress role, because he might be tempted to throw him to some Ferals then. “Thanks. Me, too.”

He headed out, leaving the docks and the small town of Far Habor in his dust as he followed Cassie’s hastily drawn map of the island on the back of some paper Mitch had offered for the effort.

Walking north-by-northwest, he followed the road up and around the island. First stop: National Park Visitor’s Center


	13. Sugar Bombs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this chapter is ~6 years before the SS makes it to Far Harbor, I'm saying Uncle Ken (Mitch's uncle) lives at the National Park Visitor's Center, and it's in better shape than when the SS first sees it (the wall to the bedroom and the hallway on the second floor aren't knocked out yet, the ceiling is still holding up, but it's clear it's one leaf away from rotting through and collapsing, the porch is the same).
> 
> Okay, yes, I cheated in this chapter. There are no lemon trees in the official game lore or from Creation Club. There IS, however, this awesome Mod that allows you to plant lemon trees as a consumable fruit and you can make things with it (lemonade, lemon pie, and it can be used in recipes for Angler and Mirelurks to give you a +bonus of some sort), so....yeah, I stole the idea for the lemonade part. :)
> 
> In game lore, Cassie Dalton is the last of the Daltons when the SS meets her, which is ~6 years in the future from this point in the timeline. So, I've given her a family to lose once the Fog Crawler attacks (I know - cruel me! Oh, the angst and drama!). Sorry, not sorry? ;) 
> 
> Also, I thought all those sap buckets in game were being under-appreciated and wrongly-utilized by Bethesda (apparently they don't like pancakes with maple syrup???). So, I got creative to try to explain how the donut creation kit in Creation Club could even work, given it's based entirely around SUGAR, which the Commonwealth doesn't seem to have. Yeah, it was a stretch, but...... Well, it could happen.
> 
> Finally, for the sake of this story, Super Mutants have only just begun settling into Far Harbor, coming in small, roving groups.

* * *

 

The National Park Visitor’s Center seemed deserted.

 _Not quite,_ Shawn wryly thought as he noted the various floor-related traps around the main entrance and avoided them with a light step.

Those indicated that someone lived here—or at least they had until relatively recently.

He called out when he hit the front porch, but no one answered from inside the main house, and no lights were on to indicate anyone was home. Using a pick-lock to open the front door, he broke in easily… The house was filthy and in disrepair, but it was clear by the well-worn and smooth path leading from the front door to the stairs that someone did live here among the piles of dirt and debris shoved into corners and the cobwebs hanging all over the place.

He tried the light switch, but that was a no-go, but then he didn’t hear the growling hum of a generator working anywhere nearby. The home’s owner must have turned it off when he’d left, and now it was too dark outside to go looking for it. At least the walls and roof were intact, and the front door did have a lock, so he could crash here tonight with some measure of security.

He headed up the stairs to find a place to hole up and rest, and turned his Pip-Boy off so as not to alert anyone or anything outside that there was a stranger in the house. That green light wasn’t as bright as the white lights in most lamps, but it was a beacon in the darkness.

At the top of the stairs, down a small hall to the left, there was a bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom’s good condition cinched it: someone lived here now. There were clean sheets and a pillow on the bed, and there were men’s clothing in the dresser.

So where was the homeowner?

Hoping that person didn’t come home tonight with a gun in hand, Shawn took a chance and shut and locked the bedroom door behind him. Cassie had said there were Ferals that had found this location once upon a time, so it was always possible they were still lurking outside in the surrounding forest. Locked doors were a great way to keep them out, and he was currently behind two of them.

 _Should be safe enough,_ he thought.

He slept above the covers, kept his clothes and shoes on. His Pip-Boy was stuffed inside his pack, which he’d looped around one arm and set next to him on the bed. In his other hand was a 10mm, safety on.

Over the years since he’d been out of the vault, Shawn had learned how to sleep perfectly still and silently. It was a skill he put to good practice that night as foreign sounds rattled the windows and whipped through the trees outside.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Shawn was on the road again, heading towards Dalton Farm. He arrived within an hour to find Cassie’s son, Jameson, tending the farm with his wife, Maria, while his mother was gone to town. The place was also guarded by a Grey wolf named Timber that he’d won over easily with a bribe of some Salisbury steak.

“Cassie’s worried Allen’s met something on the road,” he told the nice, but clearly weathered couple. Seemed farming was a hard life, and it showed on both of their faces. They looked closer to being in their early forties, rather than in their late twenties. “Has he come by since she left for town?”

Jameson shook his head. He was already thinning in the front, Shawn noticed. “Ma’s right to be worried. He hasn’t come by here. It’s been three weeks now. Usually he makes the island route weekly.”

He stayed to share a glass of lemonade, freshly squeezed by Maria, and savored the sweet-tart taste as it washed over his tongue and teeth. “Where’d you find the sugar?” he asked her. “That’s a rare commodity in the Commonwealth, where I’m from.”

She gave him a mysterious smile and leaned in to confess, “Raw sap from a Maple tree, boiled down. I pour it into the metal cube trays inside the fridge and let it set, then take out a bit at a time as I need it.”

“Dried Maple syrup in easy-to-carry cubes?” he said, recalling how his mother would occasionally fix pancakes for them when he was a kid, and how they’d get a big spoonful to drizzle over them. She’d held on to that blasted bottle of maple syrup and used it sparingly for years, assuring it was kept in their cold cellar and in an airtight bottle for preserving. That shit had been gold in their house. “Ingenious! This would be worth a fortune in the Commonwealth, if you could get it there.”

Maria looked over at Jameson, surprised. “Really?”

Shawn nodded, thinking of Vadim and Scarlett’s experimental kitchen, and those donuts he’d eaten. “Hell, yes. I know someone in Diamond City who would definitely invest in a steady supply of the stuff. She’s trying to start up a bakery, but you can’t do that without sugar.”

It was clear by the couple’s excited faces that they thought they’d finally found a way to get out of the farming business. Jameson took Maria’s hand in his. “Tell us more, if you don’t mind.”

 

* * *

 

Two hours and a nice breakfast of a Mirelurk egg omelette and some fresh cut watermelon slices later, Shawn was back on the road with a full tummy, and feeling pretty good about possibly helping the Daltons climb out of poverty. It would take work on their end, but he could smooth the path for them to give them a fighting chance.

But first, he had to find Allen Lee and his roving caravan, for that was an intricate part of the Dalton’s success. They couldn’t get their product out to market without a middle man to carry it for them.

The Daltons had told him the Oceanarium was abandoned, so he passed by it and cut off the road, crossing into the forest in the direction of the Aldersea Day Spa.  The place was abandoned, too, when he finally came up on it, but it was a good location to stop and rest for a bit. Sitting on a bench next to a Vim vending machine, Shawn downed a bottle of purified water and wiped his sweaty brow.

Here it was November, and he was _sweating_. Still seemed weird to him. Before the war, he’d be shivering his ass off right about now. All of the leaves would have fallen off the trees, the excitement of Thanksgiving and Christmas would have loomed right around the corner, and the first snows would have appeared on the ground.

Damn, but he missed snow. Not the shoveling part, but the way it had glimmered like diamonds in the sunlight, and how muted and peaceful the world had seemed whenever it had fallen from the gray heavens far above. Snow had been one of the few free and abundant things in the world then, and there were a million ways a kid could use it to create fun: for snowball fights with Cindy, for building snow castles in the backyard with his best friend, Paul Rogers, and for rolling snowmen with stick arms into life and forcing them to wear one of his dad’s ties.

He missed that and more…

Skating on the small stream in the gully behind Sanctuary… Cutting down an evergreen from the forest behind their house, hefting the axe and letting it swing with his dad’s help, and later decorating it with colorful glass balls that had been in the family for two generations… The smell of sage and rosemary-sprinkled duck or wild turkey—whatever his father had managed to fell with his gun that year—cooking in the oven, bathing in its own juices… Watching Cindy help mother make homemade pies from the pumpkins that had grown in their tiny garden out back… The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg filling the air and his mother’s fresh whipped eggnog on Christmas morning… Un-wrapping plain brown paper with the same colored strings that were reused every year, finding the treasures gifted underneath: hand-knitted sweaters and new winter scarves, ink pens for school and crayons for art projects, a balanced and tempered knife in a leather sheathe for him and a fancy tea party set cobbled together from the thrift store for Cindy… Caroling with the neighbors around the big tree on the end of the street, holding candles in the cold and hating the singing part, but feeling like he belonged, despite his freaky eyes…

The love, the coziness, the _‘this is enough’_ happiness that he’d believed would never end was what he missed most of all, though.

Something beyond the Day Spa’s property line gave a whooping cry and forced Shawn back into the here and now. He quickly wiped the tears from his face, sniffed hard to stop his nose from dripping, and reminded himself for the millionth time that the world he’d known was gone, and the only way he was getting his family back was if he solved the riddle of ‘Patriot’s’ code. He needed that override program, so he could get his mom, dad, and little sis out of cryo-freeze, too.  

And he could quit pining for snow because it wasn’t coming back anytime soon, he thought as he readied his guns. According to the ghouls he’d talked to in Diamond City, soon after the war, snow had fallen hard for about ten years, and it made people sick with radiation poisoning. Then, one day, it had just stopped, and it had never snowed again in the Commonwealth. The traders coming up from the Capital Wasteland told the same story. The weather patterns had shifted too radically due to the radiation, and although it rained here, the air was never cold enough.

He moved swiftly to find cover behind a moss-covered trellis and knelt down, looking for any signs of trouble. That weird hooting sound came again, only from farther off. It was moving away, heading towards the Oceanarium.

With a relieved sigh, Shawn kept low and hurried in the opposite direction, heading south. It was time to get back to the mission. And who knew, maybe Allen Lee knew something about the transmissions that ‘Patriot’ had sent to the island, or at least who might have a radio tower in the area to receive them.

 

* * *

 

He was forced to skirt around the National Park HQ as a result of Super Mutants having taken up the old house.

About an hour later, the National Park Campground came into view. Cassie had said her cousin, ‘freckled-face’ Petey, had been foraging here years before when Feral ghouls had snuck up on him and attacked. Bloody and ripped open he’d somehow dragged himself back to Far Harbor, but had finally succumbed to his wounds.

_“That was going on twenty years ago now,” Cassie regaled him with the tale. “Guess those freckles weren’t so lucky after all.”_

_“Doesn’t sound it,” Shawn replied. “Sorry.”_

_“The world isn’t kind, kid. You’d best remember that out there.” She glanced beyond the gate of the docks, her gaze haunted by the ghosts of her past. “If you make it back, I’ll have other stories to tell you.”_

Damn it, he’d gone too far east.

Squatting down behind a thick tree, he rifled through his pack for the map Cassie had drawn for him and pulled it out. As he glanced at it, he noted the way back onto the main road was either directly east, which would take him back to Far Harbor, or west from where he was…and west took him too close to the edge of a large lake, something Cassie and Mitch had both warned him not to skirt. A beast called an ‘Angler’ lived in the shallows around the waters here on the island, and it was as nasty and vicious as a Deathclaw on Buffout, or so they’d claimed.

A big open space to the south-southeast captured his attention. It seemed strange that there wasn’t anything on the map there. Cassie had said some sort of sky observatory from the pre-war days had once been there, but no one went there now as it had been overrun with Yao Guai.

A sky observatory…like, a planetarium?

Shawn remembered having gone to one of those at the Boston Museum of Science on a field trip for school when he’d been seven or eight years old. It had been filled with pictures of the stars cast upon a domed ceiling by computers and blinking lights.

Could a radio transceiver or a tower also be among that old equipment, too?

Hey, maybe the observatory was the mysterious ‘Acadia’!

Only one way to find out...

Sending a silent apology to both Cassie and Shelley for having to abandon their quest for the now, Shawn folded up the map and put it in his back pocket, shouldered his pack, and headed south-southeast. Allen Lee’s disappearance would have to wait. Locating the people ‘Patriot’ was talking to was his primary mission, after all.

It seemed it was still true that Dutch’s needs always came first.


	14. Another Time & Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really struggled with this chapter (which is why it took a few extra days to get it out to you), because I had to do a lot of research on the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in WWII to be able to accurately, but also sensitively describe surviving an atomic blast. The video game's depiction of it isn't very realistic, honestly. I tried very hard to be respectful, describing as accurately as possible (but in Shawn’s voice) what happened. I am not graphic, so you don’t have to worry about that, but it is a bit sad at the beginning of this chapter. I’m just warning you for that trigger, just in case.

* * *

 It turned out there were no Yao Guai at the top of the mountain, but there _was_ a settlement, crudely and hastily thrown together around the old conservatory.

And there were guards on the perimeter fence…with big guns.

They didn’t look like Raiders or Gunners, fortunately, although the woman up front in the long gunmetal gray coat looked well-trained with that nifty plasma gun she had pointed at his head.

“Hold it right there, stranger. Keep your hands where I can see them.” A guy with a thick chin curtain and a shaved head pointed a wicked-looking Harpoon gun at him. His dark eyes glittered with suspicion. “State your name and your purpose.”

Shawn decided on the fly that it might not be a good idea to point out how that opener sounded as if it had come straight out of an episode of _Captain Cosmos_. It didn’t look as if the man with the pointy, high-velocity death stick would be quite so easily charmed by Shawn’s joking, much less get the reference.

He decided to go for broke and be honest instead.

“Name’s Shawn Cofran. I’m from Vault 111 in the ‘Wealth.”

The woman standing next to Mister I've-Got-You-Dead-To-Rights hissed, as if she knew exactly where that was and who he might be. “Vault 111's residents are in cryogenic freeze, so how could you have escaped?” she challenged him, raising her gun higher and bracing it against her shoulder, looking down the barrel through its sights. "Prove what you say is true."

Shawn was floored, and not just by the request. "How would you know the status of Vault 111? Most people don't even know it exists."

"I'm not 'most people'," she stated and raised the gun higher to align it with the center of his forehead. "Now prove to me you're not lying."

Damn, he’d met his fair share of paranoid people over the last two years, but none of them had ever asked him to actually provide evidence of his former life. The only thing he'd had to do prior was show them his vault suit. Of course, he’d left that back in Diamond City, so that was a no-go... “Er, how?” he asked, genuinely stumped. “I don’t have anything to show you. Everything I had from back then is gone.”

The woman's cold-eyed stare was unnerving, not as much as her request once she voiced it. “Sing for me a commercial ditty for a product before the war.”

The ensuing silence fairly crackled with tension.

Was she serious?

“Or admit you made it all up,” she said with a shrug. “In which case, I’ll turn your brain into a steaming pile of bright green plasma. Your choice.”

Shawn quickly thought over her proposal, finding the possible ‘outs’ for such a ridiculous test. He finally settled on, “Would you even know if what I sang was from that time period, since it was over two-hundred years ago?”

Seemed a fair question.

“You want to keep your face?” she countered. “Then start singing, pretty eyes.”

Pretty eyes? Was the woman blind? His peepers were as mismatched as his socks!

And his voice, honestly, wasn't much better. It was like listening to a cross between a screaming Molerat and a dying Mutant Hound whenever he attempted a song.

He wracked his brain for a commercial from his childhood, and finally settled on the one that seemed to have been on repeat in their house. Whistling the tune’s opening was the easy part. Singing was going to prove embarrassing… _“Nu-ka…Co-la…A five dollar bottle is good enough! Nu-ka…Co-la…Nine great flavors to fill you up!”_

He flushed and trailed off when the woman’s lips curled upward in dark amusement.

“Ah, fuck, I suck at singing! Ask me something else.”

She didn't even hesitate when she laid it on him, “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”

Hadn’t he just been through this in his head, earlier? Being forced to drag that painful thought up again was not making him a happy camper. “Snow,” he said through his teeth and a defiant tilt to his chin. “Next question.”

The woman lost her smile, clearly uncomfortable with his succinct and honest response. Something in her expression said she was starting to believe him.

“Did you see the bombs detonate?” she dared.

Now he was starting to get pissed. “Are you fucking kidding, lady? Would I be _here,_ looking like _this_ if I had?" He indicated the smooth skin of his face, not a trace of radiation damage on it anywhere. "Of course I didn't _see_ the bombs. I was already in the vault with my parents and sister by the time of the first detonation."

"You felt them go off, though?"

He huffed, shook his head at her audacity. "What, are you one of those freaks that gets off on people's pain or something? Okay, fine, yes, I felt them. Nearly pissed my pants. Happy?”

“Tell me what you remember,” she pressed.

Yeah, she was a sadist, alright.

And no way was he getting out of this one without revealing a piece of his soul, either. It was obvious by the way the woman focused so intently on him that she wasn’t budging until he’d convinced her that he was the real deal.

Resigned to playing her game for now, especially if it would answer his questions about whether or not he'd actually found Acadia at long last, he thought back to that awful moment just before the first detonation, dragging that horrible memory out of the darkest corners of his skull and dusting it off. “It…didn’t seem real,” he admitted, reliving that awful moment again. “The sirens were so loud and everyone was scared, but it still felt like there was no way we were staring down at the end of everything, you know? I mean, the vault workers were _smiling_ and welcoming us, telling us how there was going to be a grand dinner later, just as soon as we went through decontamination. Whatever. Liars." He started getting angry all over again, his frustration mounting at the returning sense of helplessness. Knowing what he did now, he wished he could resurrect those dead scientists and administration dicks and kill them all over again, preferably taking a nice, long time to do it, too. "Billions of people were dying above us, and they were talking about having steak and potatoes like it was just another day on the farm."

The guilt he’d thought he’d buried under heavy drink and keeping busy returned full force, the familiar, sharp blow to his guts making his insides quiver. This was why he hadn’t been able to sleep well for months after leaving the vault, and why he’d needed alcohol to knock him out those first few weeks, despite the danger of being so intoxicated in a foreign land.

And then he’d met Dutch, and the guy had forced him to cut that shit out, fast-like. He’d sobered Shawn up, taught him how to survive in this new reality, got him fed and clothed, gave him caps to gear-up, taught him how to crack through locks and repair his stuff and, even though he wasn’t as good as cracking through computers as Dutch was, he’d figured out the basics and sometimes got it right. He’d given Shawn the run-down on the factions in the ‘Wealth, on the creatures that roamed it in between, and some about the world that was left over, trying to rebuild. He’d even given Shawn the space to talk about his old life, let him work through the survivor’s guilt…and never judged him.

His best friend had saved his life, in every way possible, and he’d never asked for anything in return. That’s why Shawn owed him so much. It was a debt he didn’t think he’d ever fully repay.

God help him, he was trying, though.

“What happened next?” the woman asked, her dark hair stirring in the breeze.

A storm was coming, maybe one hour at most and it would be upon them. It didn’t smell like a Rad Storm, though. It lacked that sharp, burning cinder and acid taint that usually preceded such a thing. The air…it smelled like rotting leaves and stagnant water instead.

“Fog’s rolling in,” the man said, sniffing the air, too.

“I know,” the woman calmly stated. “I’m waiting for the rest before I decide.”

Shawn sighed. “You want more?”

“You didn’t tell me how it felt when the bombs went off. Get talking, stranger.”

He growled, frustrated by her continued prodding but gave in, for Dutch. “The sound was… I don’t know if there’s a way to describe it. It was this _roar_ that never seemed to end, and that seemed to contain every angry shout in human history. I nearly broke a tooth from clenching my jaw so hard. My ears popped because all the air in the room was being pulled away, and then just as quickly released. As I said, I nearly pissed myself. It was the change in pressure. It hit everywhere, all at once, like…like someone took a big, god-sized slugger to every inch of your body. At the same time, you were being squeezed so hard, you thought your head would pop. There was no standing through that. You fell in place. When my forehead hit the floor, that's when I knew it was all real, and that it was the end.”

He got lost in his head again, pulling at those memory strings like cotton candy filament off a paper stick.

_Careful, or you’ll break apart. And then where will you be?_

“When the pain in my head and ribs stopped, my first thought was, 'what happened to the sirens?' 'Cause they'd gone silent, the same as everyone and everything all around. That…stillness…was worse than the alarms had been, I think." He looked down at his calloused palm, flexed his fingers as if he could still feel Cindy's sweaty hand in his, gripping him like he was her only lifeline. "My heartbeat was so loud in my ears, pounding away. It hurt. And then my mother started wailing, and my dad tried to calm her, and that set everyone else off. Everyone cried, because we all knew how screwed we were. We all knew-”

He broke off, chest on fire, throat clogged with unspoken regret. He rubbed at the tears welling in his eyes, trying to hold them at bay, telling himself again that he was blameless, that being one of the few chosen by Vault-Tec to live-on had not been his decision, nor had leaving everyone else outside to die.

 _"Their fates are not your fault, Shawn._ _Stop punishing yourself for surviving."_

Dutch knew better than anyone the truth, as he'd spent years blaming himself for his sister's abduction—for not having been the one taken instead. His best friend still suffered a bit of that guilt. And for two years, Shawn had given the whole 'forgiveness of self' thing his all. Yet, the pain was still so raw and unrelenting. It never seemed to let go.

As he closed his eyes now, he could still hear the cries of those left behind _…_

 _"That's absurd!_ _You can't keep us out!"_

_Max was barking from their backyard, where he was still chained up. Shawn turned to go back for him…_

_"You're the military, aren't you? Well, you're supposed to protect us!"_

_Shawn's father grabbed his arm, pulling him with a soldier's strength, forcing him to keep going, to keep moving, not to look back…_

_"Oh, my god, we're all gonna die out here, aren't we?"_

_The barking grew more desperate, but the sounds of copters and official government personnel shouting orders quickly drowned it out…_

_"I'm going in there! You can't stop me!"_

_"I'm reporting this!"_

_They took the elevator down, even as more people hovered above waiting for the next lift…_

_They'd left Max behind to die, too…_

Shawn gripped the side of his head, trying to make the anguished, desperate voices stop. He pulled hard on his hair and mentally shoved the memories back inside a TIME OUT box in his brain, a trick Dutch had taught him when the nightmares became too much and stalked him into wakefulness.

It was like wrestling alligators in oil, but somehow he managed to slam those thoughts away and to quiet his mind once more. “Jesus, FUCK!” he swore, and panting, he let his weight collapse on his spine. Folding in on himself he dropped until he was crouching inches above the dirt. "Fuck!"

He'd really done it this time, tore the scab off good and hard. 

This was gonna bleed for a while. He'd be lucky to see much sleep tonight, unless he could conjure up a bottle and drown in its numbing capabilities.

Hands trembling, he ran them through his sticky, long hair, pushing it off his face.

All that suffering, all that death…and for what? For some half-wit in the White House with an overblown ego? For some trade negotiations gone all wrong with people half a world away? How important was it really that Nuka Cola had a new market to sell to or that everyone eat America's apple pie, really? Why couldn’t people just be decent to each other, regardless of where they lived or what language they spoke? Dutch had been so for him; he'd taken in the two-hundred year old Vaultie freak with the mismatched eyes and the stomach that never seemed to stop rumbling, and he'd helped him find his feet. Shawn had taken that kindness and paid it forward every chance he got now, too. Why was that such a hard concept? Wasn't that what the Good Lord wanted you to do, anyway?

The resentment banging around inside his chest wanted out. He couldn't stay here another minute _…_

“Fuck this, I’m not playing anymore,” he growled, standing to his full height and readjusting his pack on his shoulder, he swiped away the tears from his cheeks and glared up at the woman on the fence. "You can keep your bloody secrets! I'm gone!"

He started trudging off back down the hill, disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to complete this part of the mission for Dutch. He’d have to find another way-

Footsteps running to catch him from behind had him whirling and pointing his gun at his tag-along. It was the woman with the sharp face and the lovely hair. Her plasma rifle had been slung over her shoulder and she held her empty hands up in a show of peace.

“I believe you,” she told him.

She didn’t offer any further explanation.

“So?” he asked, realigning his shot to left-center of her chest. “Why the fuck should I care if you do or don’t, sweetheart? Told you I wasn’t interested in entering your little fort any longer.”

“I think I know why you’ve come, Shawn Cofran. And I think Acadia has some of the answers you seek.”

He looked past her at the metal dome that seemed to push itself up from the top of the mountain and bully its way into the sky.

“So this _is_ Acadia then?”

“Come with me," she offered, dropping her hands to her sides, clearly confident that he was no threat to her. "You need to meet someone, the leader of our group.”

Wary, but now that he was calmer, he realized that this meant he hadn’t failed Dutch after all. He could still complete the mission…

“Your leader got a name?”

Her dark eyes glittered with a subtle sort of pride when she replied, “His name is DiMA, and he's a survivor of sorrow…just like you.”

 

* * *

 

Nick Valentine was waiting for him at the end of the hall.

Or, rather, the guy was someone who looked eerily similar in the face to Nick Valentine. The rest of him…not so much. This synth was in even worse shape that Diamond City’s most famous detective, with vacuum tubes and metal pipes sticking out everywhere and most of his body held together by duct tape and wires.

“Welcome to Acadia, stranger,” the synth greeted him, keeping a safe enough distance between them that Shawn wouldn’t be frightened off.

As if.

“Hey, my man.” Shawn gave him a nod and a small wave, treating this android no differently from how he treated Nick when he ran into him back home. Maybe the synth would be offended by that level of casual, but he’d take the risk. He glanced around at the conservatory’s interior, getting a feel for the mysterious town that had somehow caught ‘Patriot’s’ attention. Place was falling apart with that same slow decay of time and neglect the rest of the ‘Wealth suffered. “Nice digs you got here, guy.”

“‘Man’? ‘Guy’? How fascinating you would refer to me as such. Not many of your kind see synths as anything remotely deserving of a human descriptor.”

Shawn shrugged, deciding to play it cool, as he could feel the eyes of the woman and another man who hovered nearby watching him carefully. He knew she was armed and suspected the same of the guy wearing the lab coat.

“Their loss.”

“Indeed,” DiMA said. “You are unique in that opinion, however.” He turned to the woman. “Thank you for bringing him in, Chase.”

So that was Acadia’s Mistress of Mystery’s name—a cat’s, not a chick’s? “Are you named after Charley Chase, the famous old world actor?” he asked, curious as to how she’d managed to end up with a man’s name, especially while sporting _those_ curves under her clothes.

She turned and gave him a chilly stare. “No, I’m named after Margaret Madeline _Chase_ Smith, the first woman to serve in both houses of the United States Congress, and the first woman to represent Maine in either house.”

“Oh,” he said, feeling rather stupid. He’d never heard of Madeline Margie whats-her-face. Not his fault, though. It wasn’t as if his history classes had been that in-depth back in high school, and going on to Trade & Tech College for a year before dropping out hadn’t exactly trained him for being a trivia master or anything. “That’s…cool.”

Chase seemed totally unimpressed by his response and by him, which was a foreign thing for Shawn, since most ladies tended to warm up to him right away. Could have had something to do with the crying and hostility gig he’d had going on outside earlier, though. Most women didn’t abide a man showing either kind of face, especially in public. He might have bungled up any chance of her taking him seriously as a result of blubbering like an emotional reject at her feet.

Feeling all shades of awkward the longer their staring contest continued, he turned to the other guy, Mr. Science Nerd. “Let me guess, you’re named after someone important, too?”

“Yes, in fact, I took my name from Michael Faraday, one of the most influential scientists in human history. He discovered electromagnetic induction, and-”

“Faraday, could you please check the relays in my left arm again,” DiMA requested, interrupting what sure seemed to be ramping up to be a well-rehearsed speech about the origin of the guy’s name. “I feel the ones controlling the full motion of my wrist are not functioning at optimal levels. Perhaps you could run a diagnostic?”

“Oh, of course!”

He collected a plug attached to a long wire from where it rested next to an odd-looking chair, pulled it over to DiMA and attached it into the synth’s elbow joint. Then, he scurried off to one of the computer terminals nearby and began typing away.

“Chase has told me you are from Vault 111 in the Commonwealth,” DiMA said, turning back to him.

Shawn frowned. He didn’t recall Chase saying anything to DiMA since they’d come in, and he hadn’t heard her talking on any kind of remote communications headset, either. “Uh, yeah, I am. But how did she tell you anything about me? I don't see any walkie-talkies.”

DiMA glanced over at Chase and some sort of silent communication passed between them.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’m a synth,” she told Shawn. “A former Courser working for the Institute, helping to recover run-aways for them.”

A robot! Well, that explained why she was totally immune to his charm… And why she seemed as cold as an Alaskan winter. Good to know it wasn't his mojo failing.

“What’s a 'Courser'?” he asked, curious as to how that differed from other synths.

“An enforcement model,” DiMA explained. “They are the Institute's elite soldiers. To ensure they can overcome any resistance, they are built of stronger materials than others of our kind, and their muscular structure and all five of their senses are enhanced when they are created. Their brains process data four times as fast as a second generation synth, and they are also given a cloaking feature to allow them to hide their presence from enemies.”

“We’re recovery experts and assassins, when need be,” Chase bluntly told him. “Designed to deter any rebellious tendencies in synths or Institute personnel.”

Holy. Fuck.

The Institute employed killer robots to keep their own people in line?

Oh, but _of course_ they did! Otherwise the Railroad wouldn’t be necessary…or so bloody paranoid.

“Then how are you here?” he asked her. “You must have broken your own program.” Just like in Kevin Pham’s first issue of _I, Dog,_ when Sparky the Wonder Mutt figured out how to outsmart his program to be free so he could chase cats up trees. “I mean, because you’ve gone rogue, so it’s not like you can-”

“Reap myself?” Chase asked, back to taking some small amusement from watching him blunder around and misstep. The woman was _mean._ “Yes, I broke my program…with the help of a man named ‘Patriot’.”

Shawn’s whole body coiled with tension at the reference. His heart started to race. This was it, the ‘in’ he’d been hoping to find!

“W-What do you know about ‘Patriot’?”

“The question is: what do you?” DiMA asked him.

How much should he divulge? As he glanced between the two synths, noting the way they carefully monitored him, as if cataloging his every facial tick to find a lie, he thought it very likely this might be his only chance to win them over and to get the answers he so desperately needed. If he blew it now, made them suspicious of him with a fib, he could very well fail not only Dutch’s mission, but his own.

“‘Patriot’s’ access program freed me from the vault two years ago, or so the Railroad tells me.”

Again, DiMA and Chase shared a glance, and Shawn began to wonder if the two weren’t having some kind of mental telepathy moment, like Manta Man with a member of his lobster army. Or would that be Commie-Kazi and his pod of brainwashed killer dolphins?

Some sort of decision was made between the two, for suddenly DiMA turned to Faraday to discuss his arm issues and Chase… Feigning indifference, she leaned back against the large concrete structure in the middle of the room, allowing the plasma rifle’s shoulder strap to slide down her arm, putting the gun at easy reach for a quick draw. The up/down light sconce above her head illuminated her in a pool of red and gold, blood and life, and Shawn had a feeling the imagery wasn’t coincidental.

This was it, wasn’t it? She was going to test his loyalty in a final showdown, and everything he’d sweated for, fought against, and gambled away to get this shot had paid off. The cards to this particular game had been dealt, the ante upped, and now he was finally being called…

The Courser’s poker face was flawless, without a ‘tell’ to be found. “You know, I’ve been told that if you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air…” she said, giving him the beginning secret phrase Dutch had said that ‘Patriot’ had used once in an encoded message to Acadia.

Shawn had memorized all of their old codes, thanks to Dutch’s help. “Then you’re sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod," he replied with the correct counter-sign.

A small smile once more graced Chase’s wide, red lips. “You’re not ‘Patriot’, but you’re using his code.”

“No, I’m not ‘Patriot’. Yes, I am using his code. I know all of them, in fact. And I already told you who I was down at the gate. I wasn’t lying, not about any of it.”

She stared at him, unblinking. “I know you’re not lying to me. I can spot a lie a mile off, literally. If you had been making false claims at any time today, I’d have killed you without a second thought,” the female said very assuredly. “I’ll admit it’s strange that you’d know ‘Patriot’s’ codes, though. How?”

He took a deep breath…and laid all his cards down on the table. “I’m working with the Railroad. They intercepted his communications with you. Do you know who the Railroad is?”

“Of course,” DiMA said, returning to the conversation now that Chase had cleared him. “I have been monitoring the Railroad’s transmissions for quite some time. They are a group of well-organized freedom fighters, helping to liberate my kind from the Institute from the shadows.”

“Well, hell, if you knew all that already, why didn’t you just reach out to them directly?" he asked the pair of them. "They’ve been looking to connect with ‘Patriot’ for years, and when they found his transmissions to you… Well, that’s why I’m here.”

DiMA seemed spent all of a sudden, as if the conversation had drained him. He drooped a bit on his feet. “The Railroad is not as secure as they believe themselves to be. The Institute is also tracking them, determined to destroy them. I could not risk this sanctuary's safety by broadcasting on a non-encrypted channel my interest for an alliance with them, and I have no excess personnel to spare to send down to the Commonwealth to find them.”

“Lucky for you I arrived, then.”

“Yes, indeed. Your coming to us this day has been most fortuitous.”

The synth swayed on his feet, looked about ready to collapse. Shawn stepped forward, but froze in place when he saw Chase tense. Her gun was suddenly in her hands, pointed down, but prepared. Now it was his turn to put his hands up in the universal sign of, _“don’t shoot me, please”_.

“You don’t look well,” he told DiMA. “You alright?”

“I am in need of rejuvenation,” the synth admitted and staggered towards a strangely designed chair nearby. He took a seat in it, sinking back into its support. “I have gone too long without it, I fear.”

Faraday flew into action then, fluttering around DiMA and checking his computers like a worried hen, chastising his leader for allowing himself to get into the situation where he was nearly falling down.

Chase moved out of the way, relaxing her guard and readjusting her gun over her shoulder. “Sorry, but it pays to be careful around strangers,” she told him as she approached and then stepped past him. “Come, I’ll introduce you to the others and answer all your questions while DiMA rests.”

Wiping his brow, still unsure of where he stood with Chase, but knowing he had to be extra careful about the things he did and said around her, he followed her out of the room and back down the hallway to a stairwell. There, they went down, side-by-side, both keeping a wary eye on the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Captain Cosmos_ and _I, Dog_ are mentioned on the “Hubris Comics Summer 2077 Schedule”, found in the Hubris Comics building on the receptionist’s terminal (front lobby). Under the Hubris Comics label, Manta Man is a super hero who has his own comic series, and teams up with other heroes in _The Unstoppables_. Commie-Kazi is a super villian in that same series (and yes, he does have a bunch of brainwashed, killer dolphins under his command, according to the cover of one issue). I made up Sparky the Wonder Mutt and the lobster army, though. That’s not game lore.
> 
> The Nuka Cola ditty I invented for this chapter is actually borrowed from a Kool-Aid commercial from the 1950’s. I just changed the lyrics a bit. 
> 
> Charley Chase, Margaret Madeline Chase Smith, and Michael Faraday are real people in history. Everything I’ve said about them in this chapter is true, and I head-canon Chase & Faraday getting their names from these sources.
> 
> The lyrics, “If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air… You’re sure to fall in love with Old Cape Cod” is from the song “Old Cape Cod” sung by Patti Page, © Mercury Records (1957)


	15. Nothing But A Hound Dog

* * *

The first level down the stairs had once been the observatory’s small café and gift shop area, combined with seating for tour groups. Now, it had been sectioned off into hastily-thrown-together refugee sleeping areas. Empty crates stacked atop each other and old shelving units had been erected to cordon off pallet spaces, which consisted of bed rolls thrown on the floor. To the left was an old serving counter that had been converted into some kind of kitchen storage area.

Behind the counter was the man who had been standing guard on the front gate earlier. Apparently, his shift was over, though going by the suspicion he was throwing Shawn’s way, the man didn’t put down the office that easily.

Chase introduced them.

“Dejen, you’ve met our guest,” she said. “DiMA cleared him, all levels.”

Shawn held his hand out to him. “Hey,” he said by way of greeting. “You customize that Harpoon Gun yourself? Because that launcher mod you added looked sweet as cherry pie.”

Seemed he’d said the right thing, because Dejen’s expression changed from downright leery to pleasantly surprised in just under two seconds. He shook Shawn’s hand, and it was a good grip, speaking of a willingness to give this new friendship a chance. “Yeah, shoots barbed harpoons. Less range, but bleeds the vic out like a stuck pig.”

“Put a scope on it, and you can play darts with your enemies all the live-long day.”

“No shit? A scope, hmm?” Dejen got an excited look in his eye. “Might just have to try that. Thanks for the idea.”

Shawn shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Tinkering with weapons and armor is kind of my specialty.” The mechanical bits of robots, too, but he wisely kept that to himself. There were synths around, after all, one of whom was standing next to him watching him with her glittering black eyes and a quick gun reach. “I’m good at scopes, too. You want some help designing something new, just let me know.”

Dejen gave him a punchy grin. “Will do. Hey, welcome to Acadia.”

“Thanks.”

Chase kept her mouth closed as the two of them walked the rounded concourse and Shawn introduced himself to the few others who’d joined DiMA’s colony.

“No, I’m no farmer,” he admitted to a female scientist named Aster as she took him on a tour of her small side room project where she grew various flowers and plants to extract their medicinal properties. “My sister, Cindy, could have stood here all day talking plants with you, but I’m more metal-minded. However, I _have_ seen plenty here of plants on this island so far that I’m pretty sure they don’t have down in the Commonwealth and vice-versa.”

Aster leaned back against a metal desk and crossed her arms, clearly interested. “Yeah? Go on.”

“Well, like look at this…what did you call it? Black Bloodleaf? They only have the regular red kind back home in the Boston area, and you only have this black kind up here on the island.”

“Huh. That so?” The scientist looked over at the rows of hydroponic shelving she’d set-up, her eyes alighting on the Black Bloodleaf plant she was cultivating. Its vines curled over the edge of the shelf and reached downwards in an attempt to expand outside of its planter box. “You think the two might have different chemical components for medicines?”

Shawn gave a casual shrug of one shoulder. “Maybe, maybe not. Might not even taste different if you cook with them, either. Point is you don’t know, because you don’t have access to the red Bloodleaf here to grow and test. Bet you could do some trading for them, though, if this island opens its borders to Commonwealth caravans.”

He left Aster on that thought with a, “nice to meet you”.

Chase directed him down to the next level. “You’re good at manipulating people,” she said.

That floored him and he stopped before they hit the turn and took the rest of the stairs down to the bottom floor. “I’m not-”

“Yes, you are.”

Yeah, he was, wasn’t he? But it wasn’t like he was doing so to hurt anyone. He was trying to convince people to want caravans to run between Diamond City and this island to help everyone. Far Harbor was so isolated, and because of its unique environment, there was a lot it had to offer…and that it needed, too.

The fact was there weren’t enough medicinal chems on the island or people expert at making them, but there were a lot of weird plants that might be made into medicine by Diamond City ‘experts’ like Solomon and Doc Sun. That kind of exchange could benefit both sides of the fence. Then there were the pier merchants like Brooks, who was always on the look-out for new ammo, and Mitch, who could sell his Fire Belly in the bottle to Vadim for a tidy profit. Also, the island badly needed some Nuka Cherry.

Trying to get momentum going for trade between the ‘Wealth and Far Harbor would help everyone, wouldn’t it? What was so wrong in trying to make that happen?

The Courser stopped at the same time he had and glanced over at him, that plasma rifle of hers hanging off her shoulder like a threat waiting to happen. “You’re charming when you wish to be,” she told him very matter-of-fact, “but I sense an ulterior motive. What do you hope to accomplish with your flirtations and offers to help the synths of Acadia?”

Shawn looked down at his shoes, trying to put into words what he wanted and why he cared so much. “I guess…I just want things back the way they were, minus the whole hating everyone different from you. Best way to do that is to get people talking, trading.” He ran a hand through his hair and quickly glanced to the side at his companion. Chase was carefully observing him, those dark eyes of her seeming to see straight into his soul. Honestly, her uncompromising stare was starting to do strange things to his insides, making his blood heat. “I hate what the world’s become, what…we did to it. I want to help fix it.”

Chase gave him one more sweeping glance, and then she continued down the stairs before him. “Historically speaking, men with Hero syndrome don’t tend to live long,” she said, “especially when it’s coupled with a Martyr complex.”

“Yeah, well no one ever accused me of being smart either,” he replied, only half-joking.

 

* * *

 

The bottom floor was empty. Chase took him around it, though, showing him the supplies and their working generators, including a rather large one in the center of the basement. There were also a few water purifiers set up, that Chase explained tapped into an underground aquifer.

“Are there showers?” he asked.

Man, he’d kill for a hot rinse and a shave. It had been a few days since he’d bathed, and he was betting he smelled about as good as he felt.

“Down the corridor on this level, there’s an old employee locker room with toilet and bathing amenities,” she told him. “Dejen recently fixed the building’s water heater as well, so now we have both hot and cold running water.”

“Out of this world! Hey, would it be alright if I used it later?” he asked, shooting her a boyish grin. He gave his backpack a good slap. “I brought my own towel. Never leave home without one.”

“Of course. You are our guest now. And DiMA has invited you to stay on, should you wish.”

“Really? Just like that?”

Chase turned away, heading back down the corridor to show him to the locker room. “He trusts my judgment.”

Shawn scrambled to catch up to her quick, no-nonsense stride. “And you vouched for me?”

“You passed the test.” She shrugged. “Had you not, I’d have killed you and dumped your body over the side of the mountain.”

Why did that threat sound totally sexy coming from her mouth?

The reached a room at the end of the hall and Chase opened the door. “In here is the locker room.” She pointed to another door to the right. “That’s weapons storage. We ask you don’t enter unless DiMA, Faraday, or I am present.”

“Guns and ammo stockpile, huh? You expecting to go to war?”

Chase looked up at him through long, sooty lashes and flashed him a feral grin.

“Always.”

_Note to self,_ he thought, _synths are prepared to fight to the death._

“Alright then,” he easily agreed. “I won’t even try to pick the lock.”

“I wouldn’t advise doing that anywhere in this facility.”

He lost his amusement in a heartbeat. She really thought he’d do it, didn’t she?

“Hey, I don’t steal from friends,” he told her.

She went totally still.

“Is that what we are?”

Shawn shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Her eyes clouded with confusion.

“I’m a synth. I was a Courser.”

“And?”

That frown of hers deepened. “I’m not human.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Why doesn’t it?” she countered, crossing her arms and jutting her chin out in a classic defensive pose. Her rifle strap fell down her arm.

Shawn slowly reached out and adjusted it back into place. “Tell me something: when you sleep, do you dream?”

It took her a moment to follow his logic, but when she got what he was aiming for, her eyes widened as if it had never occurred to her before how much she actually had in common with humans. He was sure she’d only ever considered before how different she was from his kind.

“See, as far as I’m concerned, you’re like me,” he told her. “Different parts, but same needs, same drives. We all just want to live well and die happy, right?”

She looked away, as if embarrassed that his words had reached inside the human parts of her and reminded her that she wasn’t just wires and circuits.

He hammered that point home.

“Chase,” He put a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye, making sure she understood he wasn’t lying to her about this, either. “You’re not some tool the Institute made. You’re whatever _you_ want to be. Don’t you see? That’s what freedom is.”

Vulnerability had the ex-Courser’s mouth tightening, her eyes dropping away.

A second later, she spun on her heel and moved back down the corridor, her gruff exterior snapping back into place like a bowstring after realizing the loss of its arrow. “The stairs at the end lead back up to the top floor hall, to DiMA’s room,” she called over her shoulder to him. “This concludes the tour.”

She didn’t look back once as she took those stairs away from him at a brisk stride. Shawn watched her go until she was out of sight. Then, he let out the breath he’d been holding and shoved the bathroom door open, heading for one of the toilet stalls.

Man, that Chase was a real ball-buster, he thought, as he pissed through a hard-on that didn’t seem to understand the phrase, ‘she’s just not that into you’.

Not that he was into her…because he wasn’t. Not at all.

 

* * *

 

Rather than take that hot shower he’d been jonesing for, instead Shawn went back up to the residential area, feeling a bit too angst-ridden just then to stand still.

Hell, this had been the longest he’d gone without sex or a toss since coming to this island. It was killing him how badly he needed a release. If only Shelley had come with him on this crazy trek, she could have taken his mind off of Chase’s cherry-red lips and the woman’s black, mysterious gaze…

_Think of other things. Keep busy_ , reason chimed in.

Yeah, like convincing DiMA to let him try to contact ‘Patriot’, and once that was done, heading back out to find Allen Lee and his missing caravan. And afterwards, he’d get back to Far Harbor to fuck Shelley into the mattress until his dick was too exhausted to go on. Then, he’d sit and talk to her about setting the docks up as a meet-and-greet for merchants coming up from the Commonwealth… _if_ he could convince some of them down there of the lucrative trade opportunities to be found this far north.

See, he had plenty of other priorities, and none of them included getting a face full of plasma from a synthetic woman who clearly saw right through his charms and made him feel like he was a nerdy fifteen-year-old virgin again.

As he re-entered the large, circular room, he noticed Dejen behind the former café’s counter, cleaning glasses with a rag. After trading initial thoughts about Acadia’s set-up, the guy set him up with a spot of his own to crash between two rows of stacked crates. There were no mattresses available, Shawn noted, but at least the bedroll provided to him seemed to have been washed and hung up to dry, as it was relatively clean and didn’t stink of unwashed bodies.

After setting his pack down next to his new bedding, trusting the few synths in the facility wouldn’t go rifling around through it, he and his new friend moved off towards the small kitchen nearby, where the observatory’s café had one stood. There was a single table and two chairs set up near the counter, so Shawn took a seat, and fished in his pockets to see how many caps he could scrounge up for dinner.

“No need,” Dejen waved him off. “Here no one pays for food. DiMA’s orders.”

“Really? That’s…generous. How can you guys do that without trade to bring in new food supplies?”

“Aster grows some of our food here, as you’ve already seen, and there was a storage cupboard full of boxed food in the basement when we got here a few years back. Haven’t even gone through half of that yet.” He turned to the single stove and cracked open a can of pork and beans, dropping its contents into a saucepan. Seemed the oven was hooked up to the same power as the lights and the computers in this place, because the beans got hot within a few minutes. “The rest we forage for in the surrounding area. There are caches here and there to be found if you know where to look, and there are always more than enough Mirelurks and Mole rats to go around.” He nodded to a stack of clean dishes next to the sink area. “Grab a bowl and a spoon.”

Shawn got two bowls, one for him and the other for Dejen. “Thanks, man,” he said as Dejen parceled out the meal equally. “Whenever you want to start looking into modding your weapon, you let me know. I’ll take care of it for you.”

“Much obliged,” Dejen said, setting the used saucepan in the sink and taking up a seat across from Shawn at the table.

They ate in silence for a while, savoring the hot food in their bellies. It was the best thing Shawn had eaten in days, honestly.

“Man, I miss salt,” he finally said, using his finger to catch every last drop of the beans. “A little jerky in this would make up for that, though.”

Dejen paused with his spoon half-way to his mouth. “Salt we have, if you want it, but what’s jerky?”

Shawn’s eyebrows hit the roof. “You’ve never heard of…? Oh, man, are you missing out! It’s smoked and salted meat strips, like from Rad rabbit or Ragstag. Tough on the teeth, but it’s a quick protein fix. Good for when you’re traveling and need a snack or can’t light a fire, because it doesn’t spoil for months so long as you keep it away from moisture.” He looked back at his pack. “Wish I still had some to show you, but I ate up all my supply on the way from the Commonwealth to the island.”

“Could you show me how to make it?” his friend asked.

He thought of Polly’s place in Diamond City’s market, remembered the equipment she used in her stall. He’d been impressed with her ingenuity, cobbling together grill and stove pieces to make a pressure cooker and a barbeque that ran off of Flamer fuel…

“Sure, I guess. It requires a lot of salt and a smoker, though.”

“Salt’s easy to get. They have stacks of it here in one of the storage rooms. According to the terminal from before the war, they used it to line the paths around this place after something called ‘snow’ fell. Don’t know what a ‘smoker’ is, though.”

“It’s a grill for food, only enclosed and under pressure.”

“Haven’t seen anything like it, but my job at the institute was maintenance. I welded steel girders and pipes, fixed the appliances when parts broke, that sort of thing. If you can draw it for me, I could probably fabricate a smoker from the junk we’ve got laying around here.” He glanced at the crates full of untapped goodies around them. “There’s plenty of it.”

Shawn chuckled. No wonder he’d felt an instant connection to Dejen—they were both tinkering mechanics at heart!

“Buddy, get me some paper and a pencil, and you’re gold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How I picture Chase:  
> 


	16. Information Wars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liam Binet/Patriot’s reference I.D. in game by the Bethesda programmers is 000ab2ec. I used it here to be his Institute I.D. as well. Liam officially started helping the Railroad ferry synths out of the Institute in 2283, but it’s hinted that he’d been involved in trying to find ways to disrupt what the Institute was doing at least several years earlier. I took advantage of that little factoid for this story.
> 
> DiMA's name comes from the term "Direct Memory Access".

* * *

After drawing a rough of the smoker for Dejen, Shawn then doodled out an image of the scope mod for the man’s Harpoon gun. He had to look at the real deal several times to get the proper measurements in his head, but when he was done, he thought the design looked pretty spiffy and knew it would do the job.

Dejen took one look at it and grinned. He rubbed his hands together and was nearly salivating like a kid at Christmas eyeing the packages under the tree. “I’m gonna work on this right away,” he admitted. “’Cause the safety of the group comes before food, right?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Shawn agreed with a chuckle.

They both knew why Dejen was so hyped to get started on his gun’s mod: because splattering monster brains was way more fun than building a barbeque. Although, it could be argued by some that roasting meat over a good fire was equally as satisfying.

“Hey, I’ve gotta talk to DiMA before it gets too late,” he said, getting up and heading for the stairs. “Catch you later?”

Dejen gave him a wave, and Shawn headed out into the corridor and up the stairs.

At the top, he couldn’t help but notice Chase’s conspicuous absence and oddly felt a small disappointment. Faraday, however, was again buzzing around DiMA, who was still sitting in his resting chair.

“Not to seem pushy, but now that I’ve been shown around and settled a bit, can we talk about why I came here in the first place?” Shawn asked the synth. “If it’s a bad time-”

“Not at all.” DiMA waved him over. “I suspect you wish to contact ‘Patriot’, but I am afraid we are unable to establish a connection to him on our side without him first bridging the gap and reaching out to us. His communications frequency is never the same, and from past attempts, we know there has been only static when we have tried to contact him first.”

Shawn deflated a bit at that.

“We do, however, maintain a log of our communications, if you would like to read our history of contact,” the robot offered.

“Y-Yeah, thanks! That would be great.”

DiMA turned to his assistant. “Faraday, can you please show our guest the terminal entries for ‘Patriot’.”

“Yes, yes,” the scientist agreed, fretting about DiMA’s chair, tweaking various wires, presumably to assure they were working at peak efficiency. When he felt satisfied with the chair’s performance, he turned back to his leader. “You need to rest more. Your energy outputs are still far too low.”

DiMA sighed and sat back in the chair, unresisting. Clearly, he agreed with his caretaker’s assessment and was too weak to argue anyway.

Faraday turned to Shawn. “This way. Follow me.”

He led them into an adjacent room, with darkened windows that looked out onto the main room. There was a desk with an old computer terminal set up there. Faraday pulled up a chair and began typing, waking it up and unlocking it for Shawn’s use.

“Here I’ve catalogued every attempt at contact and every conversation we’ve had with ‘Patriot’, including dates, times, and frequency channels. The earlier entries are from DiMA’s memories, the rest from my personal experiences. You just select up or down on the keyboard to read the log entries.”

Shawn thanked the guy for his help, and waited until Faraday left to look at the screen.

 

**Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink**

**System Status**

**Current Projects**

**Outside Communications**

 

Shawn selected the last menu option and it opened up into a new screen:

 

**Children of the Atom**

**Far Harbor**

**“Patriot”**

 

An itchy desire to know what DiMA and the other synths here thought of Far Habor’s people and to learn more about the Children of Atom was almost impossible to quell. It would be sneaky and dishonest, though, as he hadn’t been given permission to look at anything other than the “Patriot” files. Should he risk it to find out more?

Quickly, he glanced up and looked around. Faraday had gone back into the other room to monitor DiMA and no one else was nearby. He could take a peek. The likelihood of being caught was really low…

 _Nah, it’s not right,_ he thought.

Rather than risk getting caught snooping, he selected only the topic for which he’d been searching.

A new screen popped up. It contained a lot of text that scrolled down several pages.

 

**10/23/2277**

**Frequency wave: 740 AM**

**PATRIOT: “This is Patriot, calling from the Commonwealth, seeking Direct Memory Access. Over. I repeat: this is Patriot seeking Direct Memory Access on Frequency 740. If you can read me, come in. Over.”**

**12/08/2277**

**Frequency wave: 1110 AM**

**PATRIOT: “This is Patriot, still seeking Direct Memory Access. Over. Again: this is Patriot urgently seeking Direct Memory Access on Frequency 1110. Please, if you’re there, answer me.”**

**03/15/2278**

**Frequency wave: 960 AM**

**PATRIOT: “This is Patriot, calling from the Commonwealth, continuing to seek Direct Memory Access. Over. I’m calling out on Frequency 960 today. If you can hear me, please respond on this channel. Over. You must be out there, somewhere. I’m going to keep trying. Over.”**

**05/09/2278**

**Frequency wave: 1320 AM**

**PATRIOT: “This is Patriot, calling one last time for Direct Memory Access. Over. I’m calling out on Frequency 1320 today. If you can hear me, please respond on this channel. Over. I can’t keep doing this. I’m risking too much. If you can hear me, Direct Memory Access, please say something!”**

**DIMA: “I receive you, Patriot. What do you want?”**

**PATRIOT: “Oh, thank Bob Crosby, someone…I mean… Ahem. This is Patriot, designation code 000ab2ec. Please identify yourself.”**

**DiMA: “My designation code is xx005425.”**

**PATRIOT: “Repeat for verification, please.”**

**DiMA: “xx005425.”**

**PATRIOT: “That’s- Oh, my god, it’s really you, isn’t it? You’re DiMA! You’re still alive! Ha, ha! I knew it! I knew if I kept… Do you know who I am?”**

**DIMA: “No, but I recognize your designation code as belonging to the Institute, my enemy.”**

**PATRIOT: “No, I’m not! I mean, I work at the Institute, yes, but I’m not your enemy. I just… I read about you and the other prototype version 2.5 in the archives and I had a feeling you weren’t that easy to… Listen, my time is short. I’ll get to the point: I need your help.”**

**DIMA: “I do not know you, ‘Patriot-000ab2ec’. I do not trust you, and I will not help the Institute.”**

**PATRIOT: “I-I-I don’t blame you for… I know asking for your trust is too much given the circumstances, but I’m not asking you to help the Institute. In fact…I’m asking just the opposite.”**

**DIMA: “…”**

**PATRIOT: “A-Are you still there?”**

**DiMA: “…I am listening.”**

**PATRIOT: “Good. Look, I can’t talk long on this frequency. They’ll trace it. I’ll contact you again on Frequency 1210 in two weeks. Will you give me a chance to explain my plans?”**

**DIMA: “You have me intrigued. But if this proves to be a trick-”**

**PATRIOT: “It’s not. Not one on you, anyway. That, I promise.”**

****

That conversation was from four years ago. ‘Patriot’ had been active before he’d decided to break Shawn out of the vault.

Interesting.

He wondered if DiMA had recorded these conversations in that synthetic brain of his, and if there was a way to get those memories onto a holotape so Shawn could hear the voice of the man who had freed him. How he spoke could provide just as much valuable insight as what he said. It could clue Shawn in to whether or not ‘Patriot’ was trustworthy. DiMA seemed to think so now, but the Railroad wanted to be sure before sticking their necks out, and it was Shawn’s job to find out for them just how far ‘Patriot’ was willing to go on this journey towards befriending Institute outsiders.

He scrolled down, reading the next entry.

 

**05/23/2278**

**Frequency wave: 1210 AM**

**PATRIOT: “000ab2ec checking in. Are you there, xx005425?”**

**DiMA: “I am here, 000ab2ec.”**

**PATRIOT: “Security check: what did I last promise you, xx005425?”**

**DiMA: “That you did not intend to trick me.”**

**PATRIOT: “Verified. Good. You need to perform a security check on me every time, too. Ask me a question so you can get into the habit.”**

**DiMA: “I see. That is a wise precaution. Here is your question: who did you thank when you first recognized my designation?”**

**PATRIOT: “Um, Bob Crosby, I think. Hehe. Good one. Yes, I secretly like his music.”**

**DiMA: “You are now verified as well. When last we spoke, you mentioned needing my aid, but I should tell you that I am hardly in a position to offer you any support. I am far from the Commonwealth now.”**

**PATRIOT: “Do you have contacts in Boston? I need to send a…package…out as soon as possible. Otherwise, it’s scheduled for ‘repurposing’ next week.”**

**DiMA: “A…package. I believe I understand your meaning.”**

**PATRIOT: “Can you help get it…delivered?”**

**DiMA: “Perhaps.”**

****

The rest of that particular transmission was garbled by a long string of numbers and letters put together, which made absolutely no sense. Shawn didn’t understand what it meant. Perhaps Dutch would, though. He was good with computer talk.

Looking around for a pencil and paper, he found both inside the desk and pulled them out, then jotted down the intricate-looking code. Hell, for all he knew, this was an error message, something the computer scrambled due to its age, but it just as likely could have been intentionally messed up by a sly programmer to hide the truth underneath a layer of gobbledygook. He’d show it to Dutch when he was done here in Far Harbor, see if his people could make sense of it.

The next set of entries seemed to be more of the same kind of conversation over a series of months and years: ‘Patriot’ would arbitrarily send out a signal and DiMA, who must have been monitoring every frequency on the AM radio, constantly, would answer. They’d ask each other security questions, and once they’d established their identities to each other, ‘Patriot’ would speak of ‘packages’ he needed to move into Boston. DiMA would reply he would do what he could to help. The name of DiMA’s contact in the city, though, was never revealed.

Who had he been talking to in Bean Town that might also have a vested interest in helping synths escape the Institute—because that’s clearly what had been going on. ‘Package’ was obviously code for a rogue synth who broke its program. With ‘Patriot’s’ assistance, DiMA had been ferreting out others of his kind, helping them escape the Institute and safely traversing the Commonwealth to make it up north to him. It was the only thing that explained Chase, Faraday, Dejen, and the others who had taken up residence inside this old observatory.

Shawn considered a list of suspects from people he already knew, and suddenly realized just how many people might make the list of rebellious co-conspirators: Piper with her ties to practically everyone in Diamond City and some even outside its walls, Pastor Clements at the All Faiths Chapel, who had heard his share of more than a few confessions by sinners in private, John and Cathy who owned the Super Salon and whose barber chair could prove a good cover for trading secrets… Hell, even Whitechapel Charlie fit the bill, given the robot knew everyone in Good Neighbor and apparently had made it his business to know everything that happened around his town, too. No one would suspect him, thinking him just a dumb service robot running a bunch of pre-programmed responses.

Of them all, though, Nick Valentine made the top of the list, merely for the fact that he: a.) looked like a spiffier version of DiMA, and b.) had an innate need to help others. Was Diamond City’s “most effective detective” a member of the resistance leader’s robotic family and secretly a spy?

If he was DiMA’s accomplice, though, Nick, was playing it cool and putting in a lot of overtime without pay on other projects. From what Shawn knew of him, Valentine was usually busy working cases for various people in the city—tracking down missing family members or pets, finding stolen items and returning them to their owners, and everyone knew about his weird obsession with catching and unmasking the ‘Mysterious Stranger’ in the yellow trench coat and hat.

Or was that just a clever cover for what he was really up to: running synths out of the ‘Wealth for DiMA?

One thing Shawn knew for certain: DiMA’s contact definitely wasn’t someone within the Railroad, because Dutch said the group had seemed bewildered by and eager to get at ‘Patriot’ and his insider knowledge of the Institute.

He kept skimming the logs until he came closer to the date of his release from the vault. There, he stopped and read through those conversations with a careful eye, starting with one that was about nine months before he’d escaped cryo-freeze.

 

**PATRIOT: “Father wasn’t born inside the Institute. He’s an outsider.”**

**DiMA: “Why do you believe such a thing?”**

**PATRIOT: “I found an interesting file tucked away in the memory banks of a gen-1 the other day when I was preparing it for repurposing. It was a sanitation synth that was present the day Father was first brought into the Institute as a baby. It recorded that the baby had been found in a vault in the Boston area and rescued.”**

****

Shawn’s heart stuttered.

Whoever this ‘Father’ was, he’d been a Vaultie, too. He’d been liberated from Vault-Tec and brought into the Institute to live and work there!

Something nagged at the back of his skull about that point, but Shawn’s exhausted, fuzzy mind was starting to fade out. He’d been rocking and rolling the adrenaline for days to get here, zipping past or fighting monsters, on the go and barely a rest.

Suppressing a yawn behind his hand, he determined he’d finish this particular entry and then call it quits, grab a cat nap, and then hit that shower when he woke up.

****

**DiMA: “Are you sure it was not a planted memory, intended to draw you out? It is possible this was a trap set for you, my friend. You must be cautious.”**

**PATRIOT: “It’s possible, I suppose, but the facts seem to line-up. Father is the right age to have been that baby. I’ll…be careful, though.”**

 

Their conversation wrapped up, and then the entry ended. The next one skipped to three months later, but that tiredness that had been hounding Shawn picked that moment to rear up and slam into him. Blurry eyed, he closed out the terminal, setting it back at its main menu.

Pocketing the notes he’d made on the scrap paper, he let Faraday know he was done, and then headed down the stairs to the area where his bedroll had been set up. Dejen was out, probably starting on that mod for his gun, so Shawn lay down, made a pillow of his towel, and within moments was out cold.

He dreamed of his family in their cryo-pods, silent and staring out at him, their gazes filled with accusation.


	17. Witchy Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to my friend, JayceCarter, who encouraged me to write. Thank you for giving me the courage to try!

* * *

Shawn’s night had been restful, despite the funky and haunting dreams.

He awoke to the sounds and smells of someone cooking at the nearby stove and stretched, trying to relieve the stiffness from sleeping on the cold, concrete floor. Joints popped, but nothing hurt too badly, at least.

Once he’d rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he set about doing his morning exercises. Usually, when he was on the road, he neglected taking care of himself, mostly because it was dangerous to make too much noise when out in the open, but when he finally found a place to settle his ass for a while, he always did what he could to catch up. Staying in shape was the only thing keeping him alive.

Two-hundred sit-ups and eighty push-ups later, and his muscles were burning. He then stretched every muscle slowly and carefully; he bent at the hips to flatten his palms on the floor with feet together, he rolled his neck from side to side and front to back, he turned his wrists and pushed them out from his body, and he pressed each foot to the wall and leaned forward to work his calves. Then, he ran in place for about ten minutes to get the old heart pumping. When he finished that, he did a hand-stand and performed ten push-ups that way. To get down, controlling his core, he slowly lowered his legs until he was parallel, and then let them hit the ground to regain his feet. When he stood back up, it was to the sounds of clapping and giggling from two female synths across the room.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he gave the girls a provocative wink and a grin, which made them both blush and giggle again.

Shouldering his pack and grabbing his towel, he decided now was the time for that shower.

Downstairs was chillier than the second floor, but the shower room was vacant and the water hot when he got it going. Stepping under the spray, he palmed the cake soap he carried with him and got to scrubbing away the road’s dirt. Lathering up his hands, he washed his hair with it, too, and watched as the bubbles circled the drain before disappearing into its dark abyss.

Grabbing his toothbrush and some paste next, he gave his mouth as good a cleansing, and then stood under the blessed spray of water for another minute, eyes closed and cock hard in his hand. He started stroking, thinking of Dutch…but sadly, the visual didn’t last. Something had broken there, and lately, he was finding it nearly impossible to sustain desire for his first lover with heartbreak following fast on its heels.

Forcing that disappointing sensation into his TIME OUT box, he focused instead on the fantasies he’d had of John, then the memories he’d tucked away about him and Shelley, but even the two of them couldn’t sate his lustful desires for once. To his consternation, he found he was fixated on thoughts of ruby-red lips and a velvet black gaze…

Shawn practically jumped out of his skin when a rough, small hand grabbed hold of him and gave him a slow, easy stroke. He opened his eyes…

Chase didn’t speak. Hell, she didn’t even smile at him, but her eyes did shine with hunger as she watched her palm move up and down over his heavy, hard length.

How the hell had she ended up here, doing this to him? Why?

Who the fuck cared?

Deciding to keep his mouth shut and enjoy the ride, Shawn let her go, leaning back against the tile wall and watching her, enjoying the sensation of her calloused hand rubbing him in all the right ways.

“Do you like this?” she asked, looking up at him through the fringe of her long, raven-colored lashes.

“Yes.”

To prove he did, he rolled his hips and thrust into the cradle of her fingers in time to her strokes.

“You’re big.”

He rewarded her with a rare, naughty smile.

“Nice of you to notice,” he teased.

“We’ll fit well,” she replied.

“Will we?”

Her fingers squeezed him harder and he groaned.

Now she grinned.

When she dropped to her knees before him, naked and wet, her hair plastered to her cheek, Shawn wondered if he wasn’t still asleep and this was just some really erotic dream. Parting her mouth and engulfing him in a single go, taking him deep and sucking him hard had his eyes crossing and rolling back. His head smacked into the wall hard enough to let him know this was no fantasy.

“Fuck,” he hissed, carefully palming her head and thrusting.

She caught that hand, nails digging into his wrist as she pulled it off her skull, popped him out of her mouth, and stared up at him hard.

“You touch only what I allow you to touch, understand?”

Shawn blinked, never having been talked to by a lover in such a manner. “Sure, anything you say.”

 _Just please get back to it,_ he thought, close to begging.

She huffed once as if annoyed by him, but then her tongue darted out and licked him from tip to base and back, and Shawn’s legs started shaking. Then she did the same to his balls, sucking them into that wide mouth of hers and heating them until the pressure was unbearable. By the time she let him go, he was clamping his back teeth so hard, he was sure he’d chipped one.

“Can I come?” he asked, figuring out the game quick.

Chase was into control. She was going to dictate the sex, and if he wanted to keep playing with her, he had to just accept it. Not like it was difficult to do so, though. There was something really sexy about her dominating nature.

She released him, stood, and looked him up and down. Her dark eyes glittered with lusty intention.

“Not yet.”

His cock jerked, stiffening until it was jutting straight out at his hips.

As she switched places with him, he took in the measure of her. Her breasts where a handful and then some, perfectly formed, the nipples a frosted plum that were hard as diamond points. From the neck down, she was completely bare of hair, and he wondered if that was because she was a synth and they’d built her that way, or if she shaved. Either way, he liked it.

“May I touch you?”

Those wicked lips of hers curled with pleasure. “My breasts.”

For some odd reason, his hands trembled as he cupped her, caressed and massaged. When his thumbs brushed over her nipples, she closed her eyes and shuddered against him. “Yes,” she whispered, pulling him closer by the hips and angling him so he rested against her belly. She was shorter than him, but a good height for a woman, and they lined up nicely. “Use your mouth now.”

Shawn bent his head and gently, reverently kissed each nipple before taking the left into his mouth. He plumped it with his lips and teeth, leaving the lovely thing stiff and he suspected a bit achy from the attention. From the sounds Chase made, he knew she was as desperate for their joining as him.

He carved a trail of kisses upwards, over her heart, until his mouth was pressed to her fast-beating pulse. There, he nipped and sucked upon her sweet flesh, intoxicated by the scent of her skin. His hips moved with an unconscious, instinctual rhythm against her, rubbing him against her soft belly, painting a sticky trail of pre-cum all over her middle.

The thought that he was leaving his mark upon her had him throbbing.

“I want to be inside you,” he confessed in a soft, purring voice at her ear. “Can we?”

Her hand slipped between them, firmly gripping him, and it was as if she’d magically spelled him into stillness. He paused, stopped breathing, waited for her decision.

“Turn the shower off and go sit on the bench,” she instructed him.

She released him then and, feeling his heart pounding in his cock in anticipation, he did as she bade. He kept his hands at his sides, resting on the edge of the bench, facing her, but his legs were open, so she could see what she was doing to him. Pearly tears wept from the head of his erection and his balls drew up close to his body, full and pulsing with the need for release. He hadn’t been this aroused since the day he’d lost his virginity.

Chase was a goddess. She prowled over to him like a sleek panther, her dark, wet hair slinging water droplets as her hips swung in a hypnotizing manner. Her almond-shaped eyes were heavy-lidded and glittered with wicked intention.

Straddling his thighs, her pussy was nearly even with his face.

“Eat me,” she commanded.

“Fuck, yes,” he hissed, lowering his mouth to her slick cunt.

As he licked her long and slow, like a great cat enjoying a treat, he grabbed the muscular globes of her ass and pulled her in tight. Wet, sucking noises filled the air, as did the scent of her arousal as he took his fill.

Chase moaned and writhed in his hold, her fingernails scratching across his skull, her fingers pulling his hair. He looked up the long line of her perfect body and saw she’d thrown her face to the sky.

“Never…oh, god…” she cried, shaking like a leaf in his arms. “S-Stop!”

Her eyes met his as he lifted his mouth from her beautiful pussy, tempted to give her pink, swollen clit a last lick just to make her tumble over that edge she was trying to keep at bay. But Shawn obeyed, because he respected this woman more than he’d expected to, and he wanted to do this again with her, as often as she’d allow.

“Lean back, and put your hands behind you on the bench,” she told him. “Leave them there.”

He obeyed, giving her sopping wet cunt a last, wistful look. He’d wanted to taste her coming apart on his tongue and with his mouth. Perhaps later…

Spreading herself over him, she gripped his prick and held it up. Slowly, she sank down upon him.

Shawn watched his dick disappear into the depths of that hot, slick, tight body of hers. Her pussy felt like heaven’s softest embrace…but when she began to move over him, she burned through him like hellfire.

God, had he ever felt something this good?

She moved slowly, like they had all the time in the world, like this was something she wanted to savor. Her breasts bounced and swayed as she moved atop his lap, and Shawn’s mouth watered at the sight.

“Kiss me,” she said, leaning forward and placing her mouth on his.

To his surprise, he found her inexpert in this, and Shawn wondered, even as he parted those beautiful, red lips and thrust his tongue inside, why that was. Surely, Chase had been kissed before?

Her fingers tangled up in his hair as she rode him, sucking from his mouth and dueling with his tongue once she’d gotten the hang of it. She licked inside him, and he returned the favor. She nibble his top lip, and he took her bottom between his teeth. She kissed with her whole heart in her mouth, and Shawn found himself returning that sentiment, unable to hold anything back from her. She compelled him to be hers.

Her forehead pressed to his as she pulled her lips away, her eyes meeting his.

“I want you to come inside me,” she said.

Shawn’s heart triple pounded under his ribs, and he was sure it would rupture in his chest any second now.

“You’ll get pregnant,” he warned.

Slowly, she shook her head, and he knew then what she wasn’t going to say aloud: synths could do everything the same as a human, except have children.

“Come in me,” she begged. “Make me come with you.”

“I need my hands.”

Nodding, she gave him his freedom.

Pulling her harder onto him, he lay back on the bench, gripped her hips and began thrusting up into her. She cried out, but it was a sound of intense pleasure, not pain.

“Harder,” she demanded. “Deeper.”

He tilted her a bit forward to give her the angle she needed.

Resting her palms on his chest, she rode him as he fucked her hard from beneath. He pounded up into her with a ferocity that scared him, but which he couldn’t tame. Something about Chase made him wild, uncontrollable. She unlocked him, made him feel both weak and strong at the same time. The look in her eye was a challenge, her lips a dare. She drew him in, drove him onward, slicing her nails across one of his nipples when he started to slow, taking him with the same savagery as he inflicted upon her. Their cries grew loud, echoing through the small locker room-slash-bathroom area, and Shawn had a moment to wonder if everyone else in the place could hear them. He decided he didn’t care.

Her black eyes were lit with the devil’s flames as she looked down at him. Her cheeks were red with a warrior’s racing blood…

She was the most magnificent woman he’d ever seen.

“Take it, it’s yours,” he offered, feeling her body going super nova hot and tightening around him. Her reaction set off his, and he felt that familiar, hot pull in his groin telling him he was right there on the edge as well. He smoothed his palms up her sweat-slick body, cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples so hard he was sure they would bruise. She moaned and dug her nails into his chest. “Oh, hell, Chase…you’re so fucking beautiful!”

She whimpered, and then growled and bared her teeth at him.

“Come for me,” she snarled at him.

Just like that, Shawn lost his heart again.

His orgasm barreled through him like an out of control freight train jumping the tracks. His spine arched off the bench, his shout nearly brought the roof down around them. He filled her sex with his come. Shawn pulled her head down, captured her lips, rocked up into her and let it all go. Those red lips of hers parted with sweet mewling noises as his cock jerked with each release, as if she could feel it, craved it…

“Let go,” he begged her as his body started to relax, exhausted by its release. He was still so hard, though, and he had more than enough energy left to make sure he pleasured her, too. He cuddled her close, continuing slower, gentler thrusts up into her. God, she was so wet with him! “Let me feel you, baby,” he whispered against her lips and slipped a hand between them to gently caress her clit. “You come for _me_ now.”

Holding onto him like she was afraid of what would happen next, she whispered his name when her sheathe finally convulsed around him and she cried out in bliss.

Her red, swollen lips rounded with surprise as the sublime sensation washed over her, and her body shook. From the rapturous expression on her face, Shawn was sure her toes were curling, too. Liquid silk engulfed him as she climaxed, and her cunt drew him deeper into her, begged him for more… He fucked her through all of it and prolonged her climax as much as possible by continuing to lightly stimulate that little nub of flesh at the top of her slit.

“That’s it, sweetheart.” He coaxed her into relaxing against his chest as her shudders slowly tapered off. He wrapped her in his embrace and encouraged her to rest her cheek on his chest. “Just lay here for a minute, okay? Don’t move.”

When her body went totally limp, and she gave a sigh that told him she was completely sated, only then did Shawn allow himself to inwardly gloat. He’d satisfied his woman, and had made her first time good for her.

The lack of experience in kissing had been the big sign that he was dealing with a virgin, but how frightened she’d seemed of orgasming, first under his tongue, then atop his prick, as if she didn’t know what to expect and that had made her uncertain whether or not to try it, had told him everything he’d needed to know about her sexual experience. Clearly, she had book knowledge of the act, perhaps even some visual experience in witnessing it, as well as oral sex, but this had been her first time with a man. He’d bet his life on it.

She was a heavy weight atop him, but Shawn wasn’t complaining. It felt good having her in his arms, and he couldn’t help but notice that she’d timed her exhalations to match his, until their hearts were in rhythmic harmony, too.

“You okay?” he asked, only realizing then that he hadn’t locked the door when he’d come in earlier. Had she? Had they had an audience? He wouldn’t have known, honestly, as he’d been too into Chase to care about the rest of the world. Now, it crashed into him that he’d been rough with her…and that someone could have stood there watching her lose her virginity because of his thoughtlessness. “Are you cold?”

“I’m…fine,” she said and slowly sat up. “Did I hurt you? My strength is much greater than that of a human’s.”

For some reason, that comment didn’t emasculate him or ruin the moment. Instead, it made him chuckle. “Yeah, I think you broke me,” he joked. “I may never be able to have sex again.”

She snorted in doubt at that claim and squirmed atop him as she prepared to separate them.

Despite how exhausted his dick now was, Shawn was shocked to feel that, as she moved over him, he was hardening again almost instantly. He was still sheathed inside her, and his erection was well-aware of the fact that there was another opportunity here.

Chase paused, feeling him rousing, and arched an eyebrow at him in surprise.

He gave her a goofy smile, knowing he was caught out being a hound dog.

“Indeed,” she said and rocked on him, apparently enjoying the feeling of him coming back to life inside her.

“Aren’t you sore?” he asked, watching her nipples swaying as her body slowly undulated over him. Her pussy was so wet it made sucking noises every time they pulled apart. He’d left her such a mess…and knowing that only made him horny all over again. “I, the hell, am. You wore me out, woman!” She circled her hips and pumped up and down on him. Tiny, electric fingers of pleasure shot through his core. “Oh, fuck, do _that_ again!”

His new lover chuckled, and it was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard…that was, until she begged him to fuck her harder a few minutes later, and then screamed his name to the rafters.


	18. I Want To Be Wanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep in mind that Synth Shaun in game is technically the prototype for the gen-4 synths (the latest, most advanced version), but Father had problems making him 'perfect' (whatever that meant). He's called a gen-3 synth incorrectly by the Fallout Wikia, when really he's more like DiMA and Nick - a version in between the old model and the new one. I guess that makes him gen-3.5. 
> 
> Also, one can logically extrapolate from where the Institute was going with their research as to what the ultimate purpose of the gen-4's was supposed to be (if you put together all of Shaun's arguments, the Institute conversations, the direction the various synth programs was headed, it becomes fairly obvious what the aim of the Institute was by the time Synth Shaun is built). I've simply put all those pieces together for this story to create a head canon plot out of it.

* * *

While waiting for Faraday to finish up with another glitch that was affecting DiMA’s mobility, Shawn was flirting with Chase, trying to get her to smile for him again.

He’d really liked her smile…especially when it was combined with her moaning and digging her nails into his shoulders, and telling him he felt so good inside her.

As if she knew the direction his thoughts had taken, her gaze dropped to his crotch, which was already hard. “Is it normal for humans to be so…oversexed?” she asked in such a casual manner that Shawn wondered if the woman he’d awoken yesterday was still in there somewhere, hiding behind the apparent indifference.

He gave the back of her hand a light stroke with his knuckles. “Only when they’ve found someone they want.”

Their eyes met, locked.

“And you want me?”

His lips curled with a slow grin. “Thought I’d made that obvious, baby.”

Her expression said she was unconvinced.

“Need a repeat of yesterday to be sure?” he teased, inching closer to her side. “I’m more than willing.”

She sighed. “For how long will this interest in me continue?”

That took him aback. “Uh, for as long as both of us want it to.”

“I see,” she said, and looked down at her feet in contemplation, tight-lipped.

The awkwardness was disconcerting to Shawn. He’d always been able to charm people, despite his freaky eyes, and he’d been sure he’d won Chase over already. She’d certainly let him sate her until she was practically boneless yesterday. His cock was still sore after their marathon session…and yet, it rose with interest the moment he’d seen her this morning.

“Look, it’s okay if…if you’re not interested in anything else,” he said, feeling that familiar disappointment sinking through his chest and hating how vulnerable it made him. “But I want you to know that I loved what we did yesterday, and it…it wasn’t easily forgettable for me. I’ll try though, if you want me to. Just tell me to back off, and I will.”

She was quiet for a bit and he really thought, _This is it....dumped again._

God, how many times could he go through this?

“I…enjoyed what we did as well,” she finally admitted in a soft voice. “It will not be forgettable for me, either, and not just because my brain is designed to remember everything.”

He could feel the _‘but’_ coming.

“But my life is here for the foreseeable future and you-” She looked up at him with sadness in her eyes. “You have a mission. You won’t be here much longer.”

It sucked, but she was right. He was going to have to move on, find Allen Lee and report back to Far Harbor, then head back to the Commonwealth to find Dutch and let him know what he’d found out about ‘Patriot’.

“For that reason, I cannot allow myself to…to…”

“Fall in love.”

She nodded.

A resigned sigh left him. She was right, of course. He couldn’t afford this, either. Right now, he was a wanderer on a quest, like the main character in _Last Stand at Fort McGee_ or some shit, and convoluting his already messed-up love life was a mistake of epic proportions. And yet, he could seem to stop himself from reaching for her, brushing her soft hair back from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear.

“You’re right. I’ll be here for only a few more days…but if you want me to, I’ll finish this job and then come back to you. You only have to ask me, Chase.”

Because the truth was, he was falling for this woman, and it didn’t matter a lick to him that she was a synth and she lived on this lonely island far to the north of civilization. He’d stay here with her once he was done freeing his family and setting them up in a new life in the ‘Wealth.

Dutch…didn’t need him anymore. At least, not in the ways Shawn wanted to be needed.

Chase could, though, if she let herself.

Her hands somehow ended up resting on his chest, and then she was pulling him around the corner, into the dark of the stairwell that led down to the third floor, and her mouth was on his. He lifted her and tucked himself between her thighs, pressing her into the wall as he ate at her lips like a starving man.

“Let’s enjoy this time we have,” she said around breathless kisses. “The future is unknown for both of us.”

He bit the lee of her throat, right over her pulse and she gasped.

“How about I fuck you right here and you think hard about that future,” he countered, tearing at the buttons of her pants.

She was in full agreement with him as he dropped her, turned her, stripped her, and took her in the stairwell without further ado, his hands on her hips, driving hard into her from behind. He whispered dirty, naughty things in her ear as he pounded her and she made that same adorable growling sound throughout it all. When she came apart for him once more, she muffled her cries against a hand, but he felt her body respond with a violence that matched his own. With a groan, he slammed into her one final time and finished deep within her wet depths as her cunt trembled and gripped him.

As he held her shaking body in his arms in the aftermath, he knew this wasn’t casual for either of them.

And he knew leaving her was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.

 

* * *

 

Later, after they’d collected themselves they went back into the main room, they approached DiMA, who was resting in his rejuventation chair.

One look into those bizarre silver eyes and Shawn knew the synth was well aware of what he and Acadia’s Chief of Security were up to together. Hell, the guy had probably heard every sound of their stairwell liaison, despite them trying to keep it quiet. It was oddly embarrassing, like being caught out by Dad, he thought, as he blushed under DiMA’s scrutiny.

Faraday, however, seemed clueless. Either that or he simply didn’t give a shit. He continued to buzz around DiMA, checking system function against his computer’s read-outs, hardly giving Shawn or Chase the time of day.

“Did you get everything you needed from the terminal?” DiMA asked him, politely ignoring the fact Shawn was a little sweaty in the face, and Chase was sporting a lovely bruise at her throat from Shawn’s earlier attentions.

“Uh, not yet. Can I take another pass at it today? I’ll probably be done with all of the entries in a few hours.”

“Of course,” DiMA graciously agreed. “Chase, can you please ask Dejen to come see me? I have some equipment fixes I need his help to perform.”

She nodded and hurried off for the second level, where Dejen was known to hang out.

Shawn watched her go, feeling desire for her growing again despite having just had her. Something about the way she walked, so full of assurance of her power, and yet every move was precise and smooth, like one of those panthers he’d seen on the television when he’d been a kid. It got him going all over again.

“It would seem you have a way with people,” DiMA commented with a slight smile. “I have known her for three years, and this is the first time I have seen life in her eyes.”

Three years… He thought back to the terminal entries he’d read the other day. Had Chase been the ‘package’ that ‘Patriot’ had needed DiMA to take off his hands so quickly after they’d established a connection? Had she been the first synth he’d freed?

“She’s a special woman,” he commented, watching her disappear around the corner to the stairwell. “She deserves to know some happiness in her life.”

“Indeed, she does.”

Shawn sighed, knowing what needed to be asked next, but finding it a difficult request to make.

As if he plucked the thoughts right from Shawn’s head, as he seemed to do with Chase, DiMA answered him before the question was ever asked. “You need not worry. I will assure she is kept busy and safe once you are gone.”

“If she asks me to come back, I will, just as soon as I’m done.” He looked over at the synth. “I…I would be good to her if she’d let me.”

 DiMA considered that. “Even if she agreed, she will never bear you children as a human woman could.”

“I know. I’m okay with that.”

And he really was, because raising a kid worth a lick in this broken world seemed an impossible task. It was too daunting an idea, honestly. Besides, he couldn’t see cursing any child with his defective eyes. Having a kid endure the same kind of taunting and prejudice he’d faced… Nah. Not happening.

He looked over at DiMA. “Thanks for saving her from the Institute.”

DiMA’s smile was mysterious, but still just as gentle as his voice. “That was not my doing. It was Chase who saved herself.”

 

* * *

 

Shawn selected the menu with ‘Patriot’s’ name once again, determined to finish the entries today.

He scrolled to where he’d left off and continued reading.

 

**_04/04/2280_ **

**_Frequency wave: 890 AM_ **

**_PATRIOT: “000ab2ec checking in.”_ **

**_DiMA: “xx005425 checking in.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Security check: what old world baseball team do I like?”_ **

**_DiMA: “The Sox.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Verified.”_ **

**_DiMA: “What is my favorite color?”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Yellow.”_ **

**_DiMA: “Verified. How are you?”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Have you heard of the ‘Railroad’?”_ **

**_DiMA: “Yes. They have been sending out transmissions, trying to find us.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Have you answered them?”_ **

**_DiMA: “No, but I was considering doing so.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Don’t, not yet. There are some strange rumors going around here about them. People talk about them in whispers. They’re saying they think the group may be fake, a trap to capture me, to put an end of the freeing of synths.”_ **

**_DiMA: “Then I will not answer them until you advise me differently.”_ **

****

The reasons why the Railroad had never hooked up with DiMA now made sense. “Patriot” had been afraid of them being a plant, created solely to draw him out.

Shawn skimmed the rest of that entry, and then moved on to the next, barely two weeks later.

 

**_DiMA: “You are certain of this fact?”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Yes, Father’s definitely from a vault, no doubt about it now. That gen-1 sanitation synth wasn’t the only one to remember that far back. So far, I’ve found two other synths who remember him being brought in as a baby by one of our mercenary contacts from the surface, and just last week, I was doing maintenance on Courser X6-88 and his databanks confirmed Father’s identity—even the vault from where he’d been retrieved. With that information I was able to decrypt the number and where it’s located. I cracked into its mainframe just yesterday, read the Overseer’s notes as well as the Security and the Science terminals.”_ **

**_DiMA: “That was very dangerous. A Courser could potentially access the same memories you had to discover they had been viewed.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “I wiped my poking around, claimed the glitch he’d been suffering couldn’t be patched and had to be isolated and erased. He didn’t question it, because that’s standard protocol for most bugs in the software.”_ **

**_DiMA: “Still it was an unnecessary risk-”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “I still can’t believe… Did you know Father was an experiment for Vault-Tec and the Institute both? I wonder if he knows that the organization he now heads was using him as a lab rat once upon a time.”_ **

**_DiMA: “That is…quite interesting. Still, the probability that he would not possess such knowledge is low. You were able to discover it with relative ease, and he is your superior with access to, presumably, all of the Institute’s recorded history. Therefore, the logical conclusion must be that he is aware of this fact, and that he agrees with their research and methodology.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Yes, that might explain his apathy towards his parents, too. I mean, it’s strange that he doesn’t seem to care at all about them. You’d think he’d want to break them out, save them, but he’s left them in that vault without a second thought. It’s been almost sixty years, and they’re still in there.”_ **

**_DiMA: “…Then perhaps your ‘Father’ isn’t the man you’ve been led to believe.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “You’re right, I don’t think he is. In fact, I think he’s worse.”_ **

****

The two then talked about moving ‘packages’ and arranged rendezvous using that odd string of letters and numbers again. He wrote them down on another piece of paper.

The July entry of that same year was an important one, and Shawn stopped to read it twice, to make sure he understood what was being said.

 

**_PATRIOT: “Father’s new plans are… DiMA, I’m seriously concerned.”_ **

**_DiMA: “In what way?”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “He’s just begun the design on the next generation synth, and from what I can tell, it’s going to be a unique amalgamation of human and machine, but…evolved and highly advanced. It’ll be rad-resistant, have a lifespan that is unnaturally extended, and be able to conceive and birth new life.”_ **

**_DiMA: “…How is such a marvel possible?”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “It’s actually fairly ingenious…and terrifying. To date, the gen-3 synths have been created by cloning the DNA of only adult specimens, someone already fully formed. But this new design is created by modifying the sperm and egg before they’re even joined. It’s genetic modification at the beginning of a life, not the middle or end of it. To ensure the scientists get the kind of obedient servant they want, they’re going to comb through the DNA of each of the gametes and tweak them, removing ‘flaws’ and allowing only the traits the Institute wants the person to have. This is the next step in human evolution. It’s how our species overcomes the nuclear environment above ground. The gen-4’s will be immune to radiation and the damage it can do to DNA, and so will their children. They’ll be stronger, more capable of surviving illness, perhaps even immune to disease. I’m not sure how it will all play out, as I’m not in Biosciences. But it seems the Institute is no longer in the business of copying humans. Now they’re going to be breeding us—manufacturing us to survive so our species can rebuild the surface world…and the new population will be slaves to the Institute, just as they are now. There will be no free will.”_ **

**_DiMA: “This is quite disturbing news indeed, my friend. The Institute is playing God.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “They’ve been doing that for centuries, but this… It’s upping their game. Worse, the gen-4’s will make the humans already living on the surface obsolete. They’ll be programmed to wipe them all out, to make way for the gen-4 population and the rebuilding effort. That will include ghouls, Super Mutants, and even irradiated creatures. The Institute has also been working on reproducing old genetic strands of animals in the same way as the gen-4’s. They’ll simply reintroduce those animals to the surface, once it’s time.”_ **

**_DiMA: “So, we are looking at an entire ecosystem’s genocide.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Yes. Look, I know from what I’ve read from reports that the surface world is an awful place, and maybe my father is right when he argues that the mutated cattle and the ghouls would be better off not having to suffer anymore from the damage the radiation has done to them, but…they are living creatures, you know? They didn’t ask for what’s happened to them. They’re victims to what our ancestors did to all of us over two-hundred years ago. Rather than finding a cure for their condition, the Institute is discussing murdering them with a cold-bloodedness that haunts me. It is as if they believe that wiping the slate clean and starting over is the only alternative left. I can’t… The gen-3’s we’ve rescued together would be part of the purge, and that means you and Acadia are in danger. I have to stop them, DiMA. What they want to do…it’s wrong.”_ **

**_DiMA: “Can you disrupt your Father’s plans? Perhaps between us we can come up with a scheme to prevent the gen-4’s from coming to fruition.”_ **

**_PATRIOT: “Like I said, I’m not in Biosciences. But I do know someone there who is sympathetic to the cause. He’s working on a serum to reverse the FEV in mutants. I could ask him to find a way to stall Father’s project when it’s in his department. Maybe he’ll help. I’m not sure, honestly. Everyone’s afraid of defying Father, but there are also a lot of people who agree with his philosophies or who feel such loyalty to him, that they'll do whatever he wants without question. Unfortunately, the gen-4’s most likely won’t be coming through my department, as their pre-programming will all be done on the genetic level in Biosciences, followed up with years of psychological ‘conditioning’ from the Synth Retention Bureau. One way or the other, they’ll be forced to obey the Institute’s science and administration staff or suffer some kind of painful emotional break-down, maybe even a fatal aneurysm. No robotic commands will be required to ensure loyalty and obedience. Truthfully, I think my department is on its way out if the gen-4’s succeed. Anyway, I've talked on too long and am running out of time. I’ll find a way to distract Father’s dreams of the next gen synths, DiMA. Somehow, I promise I will.”_ **

****

That was two years ago, just five months before Shawn had been released from cryo-freeze. Had this ‘Father’ perfected his gen-4 synths yet, or was he close? Or had ‘Patriot’ and his friend been able to cause enough havoc in the program to set it back and stall it?

Either way, the Railroad had to be told. Even though the gen-4’s wouldn’t be ready for years, as they’d have to grow up like regular humans did, they were still a potential threat to the population already living in the ruins of the 'Wealth and in Far Harbor, people like Dutch, John, Piper, Moe, Vadim, Shelley, the Dalton family, as well as the gen-3’s, like Chase and Dejen, and even earlier model synths like DiMA and Nick Valentine. Armed with Institute tech, and with Courser-like advantages of strength, speed, and maybe even that same cloaking device Chase had told him about yesterday in between their love-making sessions— _“I admit, I used it to spy on you when you were in Faraday’s office on his terminal, reading the ‘Patriot’ journals. I saw you had the opportunity to pry into things that were none of your business, but you didn’t take it. I knew then you were a good man…a human we could trust.”_ —the gen-4’s would be a force to reckon with once they did emerge to begin their conquest of the surface.

They could even be an army to rival McGraw’s Brotherhood of Steel, or the Enclave, or the NCR.

Or perhaps all three combined.

The gen-4's could rebuild the world alright...they'd just make it to serve the Institute and this 'Father'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The film "Last Stand At Fort McGee" is the western that plays at the Eden Meadows Cinemas in Far Harbor.
> 
> For this story, I am saying that 'Patriot' (Liam Binet in the Robotics Division of the Institute) was the one who code-named himself ‘Patriot’. In the game, the Railroad is the one who names him this and he’s surprised to even know the Railroad actually exists and that they’ve given him a code name. I figure for a man so bright, though, he would have known more than he did, especially the way he discusses his ability to zip around the security terminals and how he manipulates the SRB easily with fake orders regarding synth missions on the surface. It never made sense that he was just some clueless guy with some good programming skills hoping the synths he released up top made it somehow to safety. That always seemed too haphazard and counter to his character, especially given his meticulous and overly-cautious planning of everything else (and especially given who his father is and how he dodged him for years to carry out his freeing of synths right under the man’s nose). 
> 
> Yes, the person 'Patriot' hints at knowing in Biosciences working with the FEV is Virgil.


	19. The Things People Say (Or Don't)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the time of the Sole Survivor (2287), the fog had rolled into Far Harbor and all of the settlements and towns that had thrived on the island were abandoned. However, this part of the fic takes place in later 2282 – five years prior, and so the fog hasn’t come in yet and so a lot of the places are still inhabited by settlers. I tried to imagine what those places would look like without the damage that is later seen in the game as a result of weather and neglect.

* * *

“You have completed your research, then?” DiMA asked him.

Still shook up by everything he’d read over the span of the last six hours, Shawn was a bit slow to reply.

“Uh, y-yeah, I think I got everything I needed,” he said. “Thanks…for trusting me and letting me read the information. It’s filled in a lot of blanks.”

DiMA nodded. “Will you be leaving us then?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I have to finish the mission, plus I have a few other loose strings in Far Harbor I need to tie-up before heading back to the ‘Wealth.” Like finding out Allen Lee’s fate, and getting news to Cassie Dalton about her relatives, and letting Captain Avery know Super Mutants were in the area. And most importantly, he needed to say good-bye to Shelley, because although he’d really enjoyed the time they’d spent together, Shawn needed something more than just a ‘side ride’, as she’d deemed it. He hoped they could still be friends, but he was assuming that fate rested on the condition Allen Lee was in when he found him. “But I’ll leave in the morning, because I wanted to help Dejen with his new gun modification tonight.”

The strange, prototype synth tilted his head and again, that small, barely-there smile graced his grey mouth. “You are a good soul, Shawn Cofran. Not many of your kind would befriend a known synth, and yet you have done so with all of us here on the mountain. You have…reaffirmed this old robot’s hope in humanity.”

“Well, that ‘Patriot’ seems like a good fellow, too,” he reminded the guy. “And the Railroad, they’re risking their lives to help the cause, too. I guess there _are_ a few of us in the human brigade trying for a better world. Don’t give up on us yet.”

“As the Institute has, you mean.”

Boy, the synth could cut through the fat to get to the meat, couldn’t he? But from the look of him, DiMA understood the bigger picture and he knew what was at stake; clearly, he’d come out the loser once when going up against his former masters. And the Institute’s message had been loud and clear this time: imperfection would be met with annihilation, disobedience with extermination.

“Yeah, don’t be like them,” Shawn conceded. “They suck.”

To his surprise, DiMA laughed.

At the joyful sound, Faraday nearly dropped his clipboard, shocked that the robot was capable of such emotion. Apparently, like his twin brother, Nick Valentine, it wasn’t often DiMA had cause to be merry.

“My friend, you are always welcome here in Acadia,” the synth told him, and was still chuckling as they said their goodbyes and Shawn left to find Dejen.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, you decided if you’re coming back or not?”

Shawn sighted down the barrel of the harpoon gun again, checking the last adjustment he’d made. Nope, it still wasn’t quite centered. He had a good eye for measuring distance and tilt, and knew when something wasn’t quite exact. Gently nudging the scope to the left, he made sure the reticle was exactly horizontal and vertical, and then tightened the screws slowly, checking and rechecking through the scope as he did so to ensure it stayed centered.

“What, you gonna miss me?” he joked as he finished up and sighted one more time.

“I’ll be countin’ the hours with bated breath,” Dejen fired back. He was busy making a steel knife out of an old metal file that he’d found while out scavenging. He’d cobbled together a grinder and had used it to smooth and shape it. Now, he was hand-buffing it. “Seriously, you think you’ll ever be back this way, once you’re done with whatever you’re doing outside in the world?”

“Depends.” Shawn shrugged, setting the harpoon gun down. “It’s finished. Scope’s as good as I can get it.”

Dejen was like a Mutant Hound with a bone, though, and wouldn’t let the subject drop. “Depends on…a certain female deciding she likes your ass enough to ask you back?”

What had everyone heard about him and Chase?

“Maybe,” he replied, deciding to play it cool again. He didn’t want to look like a complete whipped dog, did he? “You gonna try out my amazing mod skills before I go, just so we can make sure everything’s in order?”

His friend’s dark eyes alighted on the harpoon gun. He seemed to see it in ways Shawn could not, noting every detail. With a grunt, he clearly decided it had passed muster. “Looks good to me, now quit dodging the question.”

“What question?” Shawn asked, as he spied a blurring in the air near the door that led into the corridor. Was that…Chase’s cloaking device, the one she’d told him about? The comics always made such things out to be a shimmering curtain of light, whereas this was more like looking at light wrapping around something and stretching it a bit. No glittering stars or sparkles there. “Oh, you meant to ask: would I come back if _Chase_ asked me to?”

He noticed the odd refraction of light seemed to remain perfectly still.

“Yeah, that one.”

“Ah. Well, I think the answer to that should be obvious by now, since you seem to know so much about me and her.”

“Only know what I heard,” Dejen said, giving Shawn a knowing look. Apparently, the shower room wasn’t the best place for a sexual liaison, due to the echoing properties of tile. “You gonna do right there?”

Shawn turned back to the place where he instinctively knew Chase was watching and listening. He nailed her in what he, hoped, was her eye when he said, “If she wants me, she only has to ask me to come back to her. I think I’ve made it clear what I want.”

Dejen grunted, mumbled something under his breath about ‘stubborn fools’ and picked up his knife, heading back to the grinder.

By the time Shawn looked back to where Chase had been standing, he could tell she’d gone.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Shawn was standing out by the front gate with Dejen. They’d successfully tested his harpoon gun on a nearby tree, opening it up for a sap bucket to be placed underneath to catch the stuff.

“Damn glad to have met you, Shawn,” Dejen said, holding his hand out. “I don’t know about anyone else here, but I’d be happy to welcome you back, and in a more permanent manner.”

Shawn shook his friend’s hand. “Be good to Bernadette now,” he said, indicating the harpoon gun cradled against Dejen’s shoulder. “She’s one of a kind.”

“Bernadette, huh?” The synth laughed and sang, _“‘Bernadette, people are searchin' for the kind of love that we possess…And when I speak of you, I see envy in other men's eyes’.”_

“Exactly,” Shawn said, glad the guy’s databanks had included that classic song. It seemed the past wasn’t as dead as he’d thought. He clapped Dejen on the shoulder in a brotherly manner. “I’ll see you around, Dejen. You take care.”

His friend got serious, realizing this might be the last time they’d talk. “See you soon, Cofran…I hope.”

The freed synth turned and walked back up the stairs to the observatory and went on through the blue side door without turning back. Shawn watched him go, secretly using the opportunity to pause and look around one more time.

Chase had slipped out of his arms last night after a final round of amazing sex, and he hadn’t seen her since. He was hoping she’d show up now that he was alone and maybe say those three little words he wanted to hear more than anything…

_“Please come back.”_

He hung around for a few minutes, but to his disappointment, she never appeared.

Again, it seemed, he hadn’t been as important to someone as he’d hoped.

Discouraged and a little defeated by love once more, he decided he had no choice but to walk on from this one, too. He wasn’t going to beg someone to want him. Those days were done. Dutch had broken him of that need, and now Chase had only reinforced it.

Shouldering his pack, he stepped down the path onto the old, broken road, putting one foot in front of the other until he eventually left Acadia in his dust.

 

* * *

 

Shawn cut off the road and turned south, heading in the direction of the Harbor Grand Hotel, thinking he’d find the road there and take it west. That way, he’d skirt the giant series of ponds in the middle of the island and follow the route that Allen Lee was said to usually take around the island. Perhaps he’d run into the guy on the road.

It took him the better part of the day to get near the hotel, and once there, he was surprised to see it was infested with feral ghouls…who were attacking a small squad of Super Mutants that seemed to have just entered the area before him.

Skirting around them took a lot of stealth and a good hour, and then he hurried onto the road again and headed west.

When there came a fork in the road, Shawn rechecked Cassie’s hastily drawn map. To the southwest was a small town called, ironically, Southwest Harbor. Some locals lived there. It would be a good place to hole up for the night, restock his water supply and get something to eat, and perhaps even find an actual bed with a pillow just waiting for him to temporarily rent.

Stashing the map in his back pocket once more and wiping the sweat from his brow, Shawn headed out to the town. It took him only a half-hour to get there.

Southwest Harbor had a decent population of forty or so folks. It also had a general store that traded in everything, including food stuffs, weapons, and armor, a small restaurant and bar with an outdoor deck that looked out over the canal, a doctor who also served as the town’s barber, hairstylist, and concocted and sold all its chems, two mechanics who fixed the town’s electrical needs by keeping its single hydraulic pump going, a drinking well that dipped deep enough to find untainted water, a bunch of fishermen, who took the town’s two boats out onto the ocean daily for fresh catches…and Allen Lee’s caravan.

The man, himself, was passed out drunk in a gutter that stank of dead fish and a concoction of unpleasant bodily fluids.

Shawn left him there while he arranged with the owner of the general store to rent one of the rooms on the second floor of his establishment. Once that was done and he’d taken the key from the man, he went back out and collected Allen from the alley.

“Up you go, big guy,” he said, grabbing the back of the man’s shirt collar and tugging his inert form out of the cesspit and over to the canal. “In you go, big guy.” He tossed Allen into the cold water, hoping to clean the stench off of him. Fortunately, the water here wasn’t stagnant and still, but ran with the tide, and so it managed to get most of the muck off.

Sputtering up a mouthful of salty ocean, however, seemed enough to send the trader into a rage.

“Son of a fucking crayfish, I’ll kill you, you goddamned bastard!”

Shawn washed his hands in the water. “Getting dark soon. You might want to get out and change into some dry clothes before you get hypothermia. It might not snow around here anymore, but the night wind will happily freeze your ass, especially this far north.”

“Fuck you,” Allen snarled.

“Thanks, but I’ve given up men with beards for Lent,” he joked, thinking of Dutch and his short, meticulously kept facial hair and how it used to feel against the sensitive skin of his throat as he… No, he wasn’t going to go there anymore. Shutting that thought down, he offered, “Buy you a cup o’ Joe, though, if this place even has such a thing?”

Allen groused all the way to shore, stepping clumsily over slime-covered rocks that were wet with slippery seaweed. He fell twice before making to Shawn. Then, he took a lousy-timed and badly aimed swing at him. Shawn easily dodged. “Hey, Far Harbor’s missing you,” he told the man, losing his amusement fast. “I was sent to find out if you were dead as a favor to a friend. Consider yourself lucky I came at all.”

Allen swung at him again, and it was a wild miss. “I didn’t ask you to find me!”

“And I don’t give a donkey’s ass. I risked my neck, so you’re gonna sober the fuck up and tell me where the hell you’ve been. A lot of people are counting on you.”

“And I didn’t ask for that, either!”

Tired of the whining, Shawn punched the guy in the jaw, hard enough to send him reeling onto his ass…on top of the rocks.

Shawn winced feeling his nuts shrivel up into his body cavity. Man, that had to hurt!

“Get up, we’re going,” he said, frustrated that this was moron who had Shelley mooning like a love-sick calf for its mama’s milk. “If I have to drag your sorry, unconscious behind all the way back to Far Harbor, I will.”

Allen glared at him. “You’ll pay for this.”

Shawn snorted and turned away, heading back up the embankment towards the restaurant and bar. He was starved for a hot meal and he wanted at least three beers before hitting the sack, and no redneck settler who stank like week-old dead Feral ghoul rotting in the sun was getting in the way of that plan.

 

* * *

 

“Died of wet lung, the poor things. It’s the weather out that way, I say. Rayburn Point is windy and cold all the day is long.”

The mistress who ran the town’s only restaurant and bar was a gray-haired gossip who enjoyed ruining people’s lives, all while wearing a grandmotherly smile. Shawn knew the type; Mrs. Fagan in Sanctuary had been the same—always talking over fences about the private comings and goings in the neighborhood, reveling in people’s misery, but then waving to everyone and calling out greetings as they strolled by after the evening meal. Shawn’s mother had warned him off of such people from the time he was old enough to tie his shoelaces. Now he understood why.

However, in this case, what the old trout had to say was information he needed.

Pasting a sincere interest onto his face, Shawn asked, “Who died, Mrs. Weatherly?”

He’d learned the woman’s name within moments of meeting her. She’d proudly expressed it, talking about herself as if everyone knew who she was and how important she should be. “Why, haven’t you heard? Allen Lee’s wife, Judith, and his two teenage boys,” she replied. “They all caught the wet lung. Bad way to go… That’s why the poor man has drunk hisself into a stupor since he got here.”

Of course, she neglected to point out that she had been the one to happily take his caps and ply him with drink, Shawn noted.

“So, he _was_ married then?” he asked, feeling irate for poor Shelley, who probably hadn’t a clue.

“Ayuh, and happily so, I imagine. Going on twenty years or thereabouts. She was only forty-one, if you can believe it, and their eldest was eighteen, the youngest fifteen. Strapping lads those two boys, but once the consumption’s got ya…” She shook her head in sorrow—as if this wasn’t the juiciest piece of gossip she’d gotten her teeth into in a long while. “Darn shame. That family was why Allen ran the caravan circuit to begin with. Their home is the furthest from anywhere you can find, so he had no choice but to travel for goods. Figured he’d make some caps while he was at it. Became a good business for us all, to tell the truth. Don’t know what we’re gonna do now, ‘cause it seems Allen’s got no need to be coming out here anymore. He buried his family proper-like and closed up his home for good, or so his sister, Sandra, says.” She indicated his mostly empty plate. “Do ya want a refill, honey?”

Shawn’s belly was plenty full for the moment. “I think this will do me in, thanks, but I could go for a cup of coffee, if you have any.”

Sadly, the woman shook her head. “Haven’t had coffee in these parts for…oh, since I was a girl. But I make a strong Aster tea, if you want.” She leaned forward over the counter and lowered her voice as if to conspire with him. “I’ll even throw in a little shot of Bourbon I’ve been holding back for an extra three caps.”

That sounded good, but he had to conserve his money. He’d blown through a lot tonight already, between the room and the dinner. And the beers had cost him six caps a piece, despite the fact Mrs. Weatherly seemed to take a shine to him. “I’ll take the tea straight this time, ‘cause you know what they say about mixing drinks.” He held up his beer and jiggled it. “‘Beer and liquor, throw up quicker.’”

Mrs. Weatherly laughed like that was the funniest joke. She reached over the counter and ran a hand over his arm, friendly-like, but Shawn could feel her squeezing his muscles, checking their size.

“I’m sorry to hear about Mrs. Lee and the kids,” he said as the restaurant’s owner moved off to heat up a kettle of water on the nearby stove. “Sounds as if the island’s going to struggle to move goods if he doesn’t keep at it, then.”

-Which would totally destroy the Dalton’s moving their molasses to a port where it could be taken down to the Commonwealth.

“If only someone could convince him to keep at it,” Mrs. Weatherly said in a tone of voice that hinted at him picking up that baton and twirling it. “Lots of folks rely on his Brahmin passing through to keep from starving.”

Yeah, that did sound like something he might have to do, because all of Far Harbor really needed Allen Lee’s merchant services to keep it from dying out.

“I’ll talk to him,” he grudgingly offered, thinking of Shelley. He was doing it for her, even though Allen Lee didn’t deserve her, not by a long-shot. The guy was a snake, sleeping with a woman barely older than his eldest child, and all the while, his wife and kids were across the miles, dying from tuberculosis. “See if I can’t convince him to keep going, work off his grief. Might help to see how much he’s doing for others.”

He doubted it, as Allen seemed to be the kind of guy who was all about himself. Still, it was worth a shot, wasn’t it?

Mrs. Weatherly put the tea down in front of him in a nice ceramic cup with a matching saucer. Where she’d found such a thing in the wreckage, much less in such pristine condition, was a wonder. “Honey, if can you make such a miracle happen, the Bourbon will be on the house from now on.”

Well, talk about your incentives…!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, you can make a dagger out of a file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW9W6Crpi3w
> 
> I’m assuming that Shawn’s family was Presbyterian Protestant, since the last name ‘Cofran’ is a variant of the last name ‘Cochrane’ which originates in Protestant Scotland. Presbyterians observe Lent.
> 
> The song “Bernadette” by The Four Tops is ©Motown (Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier), 1967


	20. Chain of Fools

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Old Reliable' is a unique weapon Dejen has in Acadia (now you know why I featured him in this story).
> 
> As stated on the Fallout Wikia: "The real Captain Avery was the leader of the Far Harbor's villagers and spoke against the Children of Atom. To calm the people down and prevent conflict, DiMA killed Captain Avery and altered a synth to look exactly like her and take her place in Far Harbor (even to the point where the synth would believe she is the real Captain Avery), however the duplicate would be open to the idea of the Children of Atom being on the island." The Captain Avery in this chapter is the real version, not the synth replacement.
> 
> A 'taxpayer' is the name of a commercial building with a store on the bottom floor and residence quarters on the top floor.
> 
> See end notes for more.

* * *

Allen Lee had crawled back into the bottle the minute Shawn had turned from him down by the canal. Fucker was lying in the same alley this morning, just as passed out drunk as the day before.

Well, since they were repeating things anyway…

Allen broke the surface of the water with a mouthful of seaweed. "You motherfucker!" He dripped water like a bucket with holes in the bottom. "I'll skin you like a fish!"

Shawn crossed his arms and looked down at the man. "You ready to get going?" he called from his vantage point at the top of the bank, having learned his lesson yesterday and moved up there to get out of range of Allen's fists. "I haven't got all day, you know, and we've got miles to travel before dark."

It took another hour to get Allen back to his sister, Sandra Lee, who had taken a room above the chem doctor's establishment. In a tired, exasperated voice she berated her big brother for involving an 'outsider' in their family business, for Allen getting drunk again, and for messing his clothes. She handed the guy a fresh pair of jeans, a folded shirt, and some socks and went downstairs to wait while her brother changed out of his wet things.

Allen snarled the entire time he shucked his drenched clothing, and pulled out a dry pair of boots and a wool fisherman's cap from their luggage.

Refusing to leave the idiot unattended, in case Allen decided to make a break for it, Shawn waited while the other man got ready for them to go. To give him some privacy he looked out the window upon the back lot of the two-floor establishment. A Brahmin was grazing in the yard, penned in by a wooden fence that went around the property and was tall enough to be a good deterrent.

"Who sent you?" Allen finally growled as he slipped his pants on. "Was it Avery, that nosey, good for nothing-"

"It was Shelley," Shawn said in hard tone, letting Allen know he knew the truth: that the man was a no good cheating slouch. "And Cassie, and Mitch, and the nice Dalton couple with the farm up north, and yeah, even Captain Avery. They're all worried about you."

"They're worried about supplies," the guy corrected him.

Shawn shrugged. "Regardless of the reason, they cared enough to hire someone to go out and find you, dead or alive. Not everyone can say the same in this world."

He left it unspoken that he could care less if the man fell into a tar pit. Allen Lee was an amoral jackwad. If so many people didn't rely upon his caravan, Shawn would have left him to rot in that alley yesterday.

"You're a merc. Figures."

Shawn counted to ten before answering. "Not that I care what you think, prick, but I'm not getting paid for this job. I'm doing this primarily for Shelley, because she's my friend and she asked me to find your sorry ass for her." It took a whole lot of control for Shawn not to haul off and crack the bastard's jaw in two. "You don't deserve her, you know. She's good people and you've fucked her over by making her the other woman. She's gonna hurt once the truth gets out about your wife and kids."

Allen remained oddly quiet in the face of that accusation. The lines of anger etched into his face deepened, but he looked like a man filled with too many regrets to count 'em all in one sitting.

Eventually, when the trader was ready, they headed down the stairs together.

"So where are the ex-Gunners you usually hire for the caravan?" Shawn asked. "They around here still?"

"They left days ago."

Damn. He was really hoping they'd stuck around.

"I'm guessing it's 'cause you didn't pay them to stay on. Blew all your caps on booze instead, huh?"

"I've just buried my wife and two children," he snapped. "You really think I give a shit about the rest of the world right now, much less making a couple of mercs richer?"

"My condolences," Shawn replied, sincere about that much. No one deserved to waste a way and choke to death in their own blood. "But now the Gunners are gone, that means I'm gonna have to be your escort all the way back to Far Harbor."

Allen stopped dead in the center of the doorway. "I ain't going back."

Shawn cracked his knuckles, dying for a fight. "Yeah, I think you are."

"You don't understand."

"I don't care to."

"I can't see  _her._  Not now…not anymore."

"Then you're gonna tell Shelley that to her face."

"Why's it matter?" Allen snarled at him, turning and puffing up, like he was looking for a fight, too.

Not in the least bit intimidated, Shawn stared him down. "You built up this house of lies around the two of you every time you touched her and now that it's not as pretty as it once was and it makes you feel guilty just looking at it, you want to burn it down and move on. You don't care that she's still stuck inside. Nuh-uh. Not happening. Not to her. You will tell Shelley the truth and it will shatter her, but at least she'll get over you and find someone worthy of her love, rather than hanging around hoping for the next lie out of your mouth."

Like he always had for Dutch…

Allen shoved his hands in his pockets, looking a whole lot less sure of the situation or of what he wanted to do. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he demanded, but like a balloon punctured, he was running out of air, deflating before Shawn's eyes. He was still angry, clearly bitter, but now lacking the fury to back it up. "Who the fuck gave you the title, 'Hero of the Wasteland'?"

Shawn threw the guy his most feral grin.

"I did."

 

* * *

 

Conducting a final trade with Mrs. Weatherly and the town doctor-chemist, Teddy Wright, Shawn promised to work on convincing Allen and his sister to keep up the caravan circuit, and then he and the two Lee siblings left Southwest Harbor behind, pulling their overloaded Brahmin behind them.

Shawn warned them about the Harbor Grand Hotel's infestation problem as they continued down the road heading east. "We'll have to get off the road soon, head northeast a bit and cut across country to avoid the Ferals and the Muties, if any are still alive. I don't have enough ammo to take on that fight."

"You should buy one of my sniper rifles," Allen said. "Head shot from a distance usually brings most things down without the mess or the worry."

Shawn glanced at him. "Yeah? How much?"

Sandra told him.

"Too rich for me," he replied. He held up the modded Lever-Action Rifle that Dejen had gifted him just before he'd left Acadia. "Old Reliable here will do just fine for now."

Allen's eye inspected the weapon and he whistled in amazement. "That's a good gun. Advanced receiver, short ported barrel, full stock, medium scope, suppressor. You're almost there already. All you'd need is a Marksman's stock, a long ported barrel, and a long scope instead." Guy wiped his brow as the sun rose into the sky. "Not easy to find bullets for it, though and it's got a max capacity of only five rounds before reload. Could slow you down in a fight."

"I'll take my chances." Shawn stroked the gun with a loving hand. "She was a gift from a friend."

"Sounds like you've got lots of friends," Allen replied with a cynical twist to his lips. "You're a popular guy."

Shawn started to lead them off the road, picking a landscape he knew wouldn't be too difficult for the Brahmin. "Yeah, well, treat people good and they'll do you back. Screw 'em over and you'll find 'one' to be the loneliest number."

Again, Allen got the message loud and clear. His expression was murderous.

"Allen has me," Sandra said, stepping carefully to ensure the Brahmin she was leading wouldn't hit any patches that might make it stumble or injure a hoof. "He'll never be alone."

What a bizarre and almost creepy thing to say.

Come to think of it, Sandra seemed just a little  _too_  devoted to big brother, didn't she?

Sure, Shawn had loved his little sis, Cindy, but mostly they'd fought like cats and dogs. They couldn't stand to be in the same room together for long back when they were kids, their bickering trying even his parent's well-controlled patience. Yet Sandra and Allen seemed weirdly attached at the hip. And they were out here in the middle of nowhere, all alone, probably forced at times to huddle together for warmth…

Shawn shuddered at the thought. No way. That would be…  _Eww._

Now that the idea had taken root in his skull, though, he couldn't seem to shake it. Determined to get to the truth, he sidled up to Sandra and turned on the charm. "So, tell me something, why'd a pretty lady like you decide to work the caravan trail?" he asked, turning on the charm to get to the heart of the matter. "I mean, this isn't the easiest or safest life, is it? Was it the excitement of being out on the open road, the adventure of going to new places, and the chance to roam and meet new people?"

The world hadn't been kind to Sandra Lee's looks. She couldn't have been more than early-thirties, but she wasn't aging well; there were defined lines at the creases of her eyes and around her mouth, and the skin at her hands and throat had a light sheen of freckles from too much sun exposure. Her dirty blonde hair was cropped at her collar and there were already a few wisps of white among it.

Yet, despite that, her body more than made up for it. She was skinny at the waist, but her bust was perky, and by the way it moved under her shirt, it was clear it wasn't sagging yet. Her legs were trim from so much walking, and her behind was firm and heart-shaped.

Yeah, there was possibility there for a man hungry enough.

She glanced up at him, clearly wary of his size, but she when she answered, she certainly didn't sound the sort of be easily intimidated. "I wanted to help, and being left behind didn't appeal."

"You mean at, um, Rayburn Point?"

"A…yuh." She seemed surprised that he knew anything about it at all. "Rayburn's home, but I've never been much for domesticating."

"So when Allen decided to make his regular supply runs into a business, you volunteered to make the rounds with him."

She adjusted the gun belt on her hips. A pair of 10mms were attached, one to a side. "He needs me," she said and there was an odd look in her eye as she said that, something a little feverish and arrogant. "I'm the only one who will look out for him."

"Yeah, I can see that. It's admirable that you're so devoted."

"Only to Allen," she confessed and threw her brother a look that said he was her moon, sun, and starlit sky all rolled into one yummy, incestuous pancake.

Shawn thought he was going to gag.

He glanced over at the man in question. Allen was scowling and looking ahead, obviously having heard the conversation but refusing to address what his starry-eyed sister was saying about him. Clearly, the woman's fanatical detachment only went one way.

Seemed Allen Lee wasn't entirely a villain, after all…especially not a perverted one.

 

* * *

 

They arrived in Far Harbor just in time for the sun to go down. Exhausted, hungry and thirsty, and in a foul mood, Shawn left the twisted siblings at the dock's entrance and hit Mitch's bar first thing.

Old Longfellow raised his beer to him as he stepped through the door, and Cassie Dalton seemed pleased to see him alive and returned with news of her family. She bought him dinner and drinks in thanks for letting her know her son and daughter-in-law were well, and looking to try their hands at a new venture, too.

"Where's Shelley?" he asked, wanting to be the one to give her the heads-up that Allen was safe and sound, and back in town. "You see her today?"

"She's already up at the bowling lanes with some of the others," Mitch told him. "Got an early start tonight."

Shit, was it Friday already? Shawn tended to lose track of days now that there were no calendars handy.

Mitch swiped his rag over the bar top, making sure it was shiny and clean. "I was on my way up there in fact. Uncle Ken'll be here any minute as relief. Walk with ya, Mainlander?"

"Yeah, sure."

Shawn downed his beer quickly and finished up the grilled hermit crab and greens on his plate, chowing down with all the hunger of a starved wolf, while Mitch washed up some shot glasses and tidied up the joint for his uncle to take over for the night, per their usual arrangement.

When they were both ready, they headed off the docks and into the town proper. Some of the buildings, Shawn noted, were dilapidated and unlivable, but many of them had owners. They were a patchwork of boards and metal nailed and screwed into place, but they stood, despite the elements and the long years since their initial building.

As he walked quietly at Mitch's side, Shawn wondered how he was going to approach the subject of Allen Lee's extracurricular life. Would he even have to? Maybe the cheating asshole would do the right thing and tell her right away so she could spend the rest of the night getting drunk with Shawn in safety. Better that than her ending up in Allen's bed and in desperation, allowing him to do things to her she wouldn't normally do. Nothing got a guy hornier than the thought of planting seed in an eager girl's belly, especially a man who was mourning someone else's death. Creating new life was, as Cindy might have said, a biologic response to death.

Hell, it wasn't any of his business. Logically, he knew that, but he couldn't stand the thought of her tears. He might not be in love with her, but he deeply cared for Shelley. She was his friend, and there wasn't anything Shawn wouldn't do for someone who'd earned that place in his heart.

Also, if he was being totally honest, this whole thing with Allen and Shells and Sandra and the Dalton's new business venture…it was all a good distraction from the thing that weighed most heavily upon his mind: DiMA's conversations with 'Patriot'.

Shit, could it really be true? Had he really been let out of the vault to act as a distraction for the Institute?

He thought back to that conversation, specifically, trying to see if there might possibly be any other interpretation…

 

_**PATRIOT: "I've done it. I've managed to get Father's attention."** _

_**DiMA: "In what way? You have not compromised your identity, have you?"** _

_**PATRIOT: "No, I just gave Father something to worry about."** _

_**DiMA: "I do not understand."** _

_**PATRIOT: "I reminded him that he was still as human as the rest of us, and just as vulnerable."** _

_**DiMA: "How? Please expound upon your actions."** _

_**PATRIOT: "…I let someone out of Vault 111."** _

 

It sure as shit sounded to Shawn as if 'Patriot' had intended his release to prod the snake that was this 'Father of the Institute'. For what purpose, though?

They reached the bowling alley, and headed in. The jukebox was rocking out in the background, someone was playing with one of the pinball machines, because it let out a loud  _'bing bing bing'_ , and from the lanes there came the distinctive sound of a heavy bowling ball rolling down a lane and the  _'clack'_  of pins being knocked down. Beer bottles were then tapped together and laughter followed.

"I'm to the kitchen." Mitch said, heading off to the right from the main area. He spun around half-way there and pointed at Shawn, shouting, "You want anything?"

Shawn shook his head and the guy gave him the thumbs-up, turned, and disappeared into the café side of the lanes.

Shelley wasn't with the crowd down below, he noticed as he gave the small group the once-over. When one of the regulars spied him, they signaled him over with a wave. Shawn went to join them, and someone passed him a beer and told him to grab a bowling ball from one of the racks. He did, and took a seat, using a bottle opener he kept on his keychain to open it and collect the cap. When it was his turn, he was nicely buzzed enough to throw his ball extra hard.

"STRIKE!" Andre cheered. Clearly, the guy was drunk as a skunk, having gotten an early start. He held a beer bottle above his head and did a funny, little dance. "Down they go, like a fat, old Dumpty!"

Next to him, his husband, John, whooped up a storm at that. He was drunk, too, swaying and slurring his speech as he congratulated Shawn on his big muscles and his powerful swing.

"You can hard-toss my balls anytime you want, big boy," the guy joked.

Retaking his seat, Shawn leaned back and settled in, relaxing and just enjoying the show. John and Andre friendly-flirted with the entire house. It wasn't long before everyone was throwing down sexual innuendo.  _Like seed to birds_ , he jokingly room erupted with laughter a few minutes later when the scores were announced and Andre had come in dead last.

Shawn got up to get another beer, leaving the gang before they started a second round, and that's when he realized how late it was, and that Shelley was nowhere to be seen.

He paced the place, but when it was clear she wasn't on site, he became worried and decided to head back towards the wharf and see if she was alright. It wasn't jealousy that prompted him, but the true concern of a friend. There was just no telling what Allen Lee would do to her, and Shawn didn't trust the fucker further than he could throw him.

Captain Avery stopped him at the pier's entrance, as if she'd been waiting for him all evening.

"Best you give Shelley and Allen time to hash it out," she advised with a knowing look in her eye, stepping into his path and preventing him from nosing around in what wasn't really any of his business, anyway. The woman was smarter and more perceptive than anyone gave her credit for, it seemed. "In the meantime, I could use your help. The Children of Atom are becoming a problem."

"In what way?"

"Come into my office, let's talk."

She took his arm and led him through the front gates.

As they passed by Shelley's two-story 'taxpayer' on the left, right past the gates, he could hear the sound of two people having sex...and intimately recognized the female's cries.

"Son of a bitch," Shawn growled.

Avery's hand on his arm tightened. "You know the most important lesson I've learned in my long life, dear? It's knowing when to walk on."

"Yeah, but it sucks," he agreed, beginning to really understand that moral, too. "It...hurts to know you failed."

She sighed. "That it does. But you stand tall, anyway, and you leave it all behind."

He glanced over at her and knew she was right. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In game, the fog in Far Harbor was said to be _extremely_ radioactive when it first appeared after the war. Then, it lessened and due to the wind current, it eventually dissipated. Over time and because of Maine's weather patterns, it occasionally appears again, and its strength waxes and wanes depending upon its concentration and the wind's movement. In between, people lived in the small towns and houses all around the island that you see when you run around in game. They abandoned those houses when the fog struck Far Harbor this last time (just before the Sole Survivor arrives in game). It contained an extremely lethal dosage of radiation – that's why people of the town and outlying settlements ran to the Far Harbor docks, trying desperately to escape it, and why the Harbormen are so very angry with the Children of the Atom (people like Allen Lee blame the group for praying to a radiation 'god' and superstitiously believe the Children made the radiation fog come to wipe them out). Wanting to help cool tempers to prevent war between the two sides, DiMA made the fog condensers to capture the fog and keep it at bay, and as a result, presumably after that first roll in, the fog's kill-strength lessened and now people like Longfellow and the Trappers can go into it as long as they have some Rad-Away handy.
> 
> In game, I'm aware that the Beaver Creek Bowling Lanes were closed prior to the war (on 10/19/2077), but the Manager's terminal entry for that date only says that the structural engineer says the building is unsafe due to 'debris', but it doesn't state what actually happened to bring the structural engineer out in the first place (perhaps some of the hill behind the lanes shifted and threatened to fall on the lanes). The Manager closes the lanes to be on the safe side and prevent lawsuits, but he/she also makes it sounds like a temporary closure; the Manager seems optimistic that the problem can be fixed. By the time of the Sole Survivor, however, the hill behind the lanes has definitely collapsed onto its roof and at some point, there was a landslide that caved in the ceiling of the building (and dragged a crane down onto the building with all those tons of dirt). Again, we don't know when the landslide and the ceiling collapse happened; the crane and the hill could have been intact for all these years. I imagine for this story that the landslide on the roof and the lane's ceiling collapse didn't happen until a year before the Sole Survivor showed up (by then the lanes had been abandoned for a few years, hence all the dirt and debris all over the place). We also see there are skeletons inside the bowling alley which seem to be dressed in pre-war clothing, but since pre-war clothing can be found anywhere even in the Sole Survivor's time and no bombs were actually dropped on Maine during the war as far as we know, it makes no sense for these people to have been here (esp. since the lanes were closed on the day the bombs fell). No, it's most likely these were not pre-war people, but post-war people who lived in Far Harbor just before the last deadly fog rolled in. At that time, they either went to the bowling lanes, thinking they were 'safe' there from the fog's radioactivity or they were at the alley having fun and dropped and died where they stood when the fog rolled in and massively irradiated them. I imagine for this story that this is the case, and that the Feral ghouls who inhabit the place by the time the Sole Survivor shows up were some people from Far Harbor and nearby who became ghouls from the fog.


End file.
